


Stale M&M's

by notmuchmoretosay



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Patrick has a brother now who knew?, Season 8, Slow Burn, YA, as in it takes a while to come out, but dark stuff too in some parts, chapter warnings will be at the start of chapters, mostly coming of age stuff, season 4, season 4 onward, season 5, season 6, season 7
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2018-08-29 09:56:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 149
Words: 339,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8484919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notmuchmoretosay/pseuds/notmuchmoretosay
Summary: A story about a boy.





	1. Brother Separation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beginning of Part One: Stale M&M's.
> 
> And the story begins, with two brothers, a finger skateboard, and some stale M&M's.

"Dude, they're stale." Patrick grimaces, a packet of M&M's in his hand.

I scoff and snatch them.

"Hm,” he says, “guess there's nothing better around here."

He watches me split the packet open. I stuff a handful of colour into my mouth. He's right, they are stale. I'm too hungry to care. I've missed chewing candy; when the chocolaty sweetness gets stuck in your teeth and you have to make a face to get it out—an extremely underrated experience, I swear, like comfortable silences and back when people were alive and talking instead of dead and trying to eat us.

Patrick slings an arm over my shoulder, yanks, and suddenly I'm getting the worst noogie of my life. I struggle and shove him off and call him, “Butt-wipe," while I try to flat-down my hair. No good. It's so long and tangled I look feral. I need a shower. And I need something better than my finger for a toothbrush. And I need clothes that don't itch and food that’s not served up either twitching or with a shelf-life older than I am. Except we don't get that anymore.

It's about spring-time now but my brother and I have been on the road since fall, but things were bad for weeks before that. We find places to stay, camps, groups. We make friends and they die, or we meet people we don’t like and we run.

Have to run.

Just have to.

Him and me. Always.

I empty the last few M&M's into his palm. He eats every one. When we’re done searching the store, our haul is mostly junk like a tiny finger skateboard and Lego. No food. To cope, I ride the fingerboard with my middle and ring all the way along an empty shelf, then grind the edge like it's a rail. Being hungry sucks, but at least being hungry and distracted sucks less.

"Catch."

I don't. Not in time to stop a red Lego piece being flung at my head. I glare at him. Pat just licks his glasses’ lens and rubs it with his thumb, then pushes them over his nose again.

"Did you find more inhalers?" he asks.

I hum.

"Store got a pharmacy?" he asks.

Another hum.

"Find anything else?" he asks, but doesn’t wait for another hum before he pulls me back by my backpack and checks inside. I let him. There’s pain stuff, allergy stuff, flu stuff, band-aids and skin stuff. Along with several new inhalers for me.

"Good," Pat says. He lets me go and sighs. I know why: Few days ago, I had an asthma attack so bad I ended up passing out. Pat put me in the recovery position. CPR's useless without inhalers, so he just waited. Worked, I guess, because I woke up the same evening with a headache and a hug. Guess that part was nice.

Right now he's looking at me like he might hug me again. Looking at me like he thinks I’m going to die — just drop-dead right here in front of him. And he’s frowning. _The_ frown. _Our frown._ Like it was our father’s frown, and our _Nonno’s_. Nonno started it though. _The_ frown. _The_ smirk. _The_ underbite; the underbite so big it might as well be an under _world_ bite.

I’m not in the mood for hugging today so I take my thumb and press it firm between Patrick’s eyebrows. He looks at it cross-eyed, and then all the creases in his frown flatten and disappear.

“Just want you to be okay,” he whispers.

I punch him in the chest and he becomes my brother again.

“Gremlin,” he says.

We move on, heading towards the front; mouldy stains on the floor and ceiling and an overly-enthusiastic advertisement for OJ and free-range eggs on the walls. Still, I’m thinking about my breathing, that small part in the back of my head telling me I _will_ die, that I _will_ just drop-dead. I don't know. I try to believe that there's a reason for everything, like how animal crap fertilises and bees pollinate and horses die so we can use their tail hair for guitar strings, but out of everything in the world that I have to suck at –and I suck badly at a lot of things– I can't think of one reason why I have to suck the worst at breathing.

I play with my fingerboard, grinding more shelf rails, so when Patrick stops and holds an arm out, he slaps me in the chest. I grunt.

"Shush," he says.

I do because I’m not a loud person — Pat sometimes says it weirds him out. I have to work on that. Not now though. Now it’s shush.

“Hear that?” he whispers.

I do, and I say, "Shit."

Patrick scowls at me.

"Don't say that," he says.

"Cazzo," I say instead.

He hits me in the chest. “ _Or_ that!”

I look at him.

"Stop frowning,” he tells me. “And stop using Mom's language in vein." I get hit again. I'm going to hit him back too, but we hear that thing again. Biters. They're outside. Not urgent. Patrick still looks uncomfortable.

My eyes roll and I pull his sleeve towards the backdoor, clear skies outside, except we both jump when a rat suddenly scurries in through the ajar door. It sits there, sniffing. Then there’s a growl and the rat squeaks and scuttles inside.

"No," Patrick mutters to the air. "No, please."

_Yes,_ the air says back. _Yes, and we’re coming to **eat** you._

One biter comes through, and then a wave of them. They tumble in, their jaws stretched wide and _hungry_.

"Pat," I whisper, about to be drowned.

"Oliver!"

I forget to exist for a second. Two. Three. And then a switch flicks on in my brain and time is frozen. I move hyper-speed. I grab Patrick’s arm, yank, and then we’re running for the front door. Biters are shrieking, so loud I can barely hear myself think. The stench, you never get used to it.

"The window."

It's big and high up and wide open. Pat pulls my collar, half strangling me, and a cold, rotten hand sneaks around my sleeve then loses its grip, and I’m swung up onto a shelf and climbing. We jump across to the next aisle. They’re being knocked over behind us. We rush and leap and scream and repeat, and then there is a wall and the window is above us and the shelf is under us, squeaking our sneakers.

"You first. Pat, I got you."

“No!”

"Come on! The shelf's gonna give. I'll be right behind you. I’m faster than you." He knows I'm right. "Ready?"

"Dude..."

_Dammit,_ I think. _You're going to kill us!_

"GO!"

He leaps, clambering up and over to straddle the window. Leaning out, his clay-brown face turns white. “Oh, dude...it’s a long way down.”

Cracked fingernails curl around the frame of the shelf under me and yank hard. Something snaps.

"Pat!"

"I can’t do it! There’s more out there."

I stuff my machete into his hands and try to climb up, to hold on, and Patrick’s hands are cold and sweaty when he tries to help me, but the shelf collapses, fingers wrap around my ankle, and I’m being pulled down.

"No!" Patrick cries. "Nonono!"

I've never seen him this scared. It scares me worse than the biters. I’m slipping. He’s going to fall in, too, so I let go. The floor hurts bad when I hit it, and it occurs to me that I've just killed myself. I dropped my machete. I'm grabbed and pulled and all I can do is fight. Somehow, I pick myself up. Somehow, I’m strong and scared and fast enough to knock some back with my feet and arms and slip through them as they fall over themselves. One grabs my ankle. I fall. Another has me staggering and hitting a cabinet so hard I think I’ll black out.

"My machete!"

"OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod!"

I can’t count how many there are. Enough to kill me. Then I hear metal clatter to the floor ahead of me. Patrick had thrown it. I seize the red handle in my palm and drive the blade through skulls. Cold blood smatters my face and clothes. Patrick’s yelling.

"Jump!" I scream. “Go!”

"Not without you!"

“Go!”

I’m sprinting back through to the store, chased, backpack slapping against my spine. I see the rat too late before I fall and hit my head. Heaving, I swivel round and see —past the biters coming after me— Patrick _still_ sitting in the window. He’s looking for me, and when he finds me, he screams. "Behind you!" I hear the growl, feel the cold rotten hands and dead breath on my neck, and as I twist around, blood is spit in my face. My foot comes up against its chest. Its weight topples over on me. I kick again, at the head, so hard skin hangs from its cheek. I grab my machete, raise it above my head, and as hard as I can, drive it down and through.

I'm running. Flying. Through the backdoor into the blinding sun. My breath’s heaving and my windpipe is swelling. _Findmybrother! Findmybrother! Findmybrother!_ I stumble along the alley, out through the parking lot, clothes sticking to my skin. This place was deserted when we got here. Now? Biters are everywhere.

I run in search, dodging dead, lunging arms, breathless and stumbling. "Patrick!" I must attract every biter in the state. _"Patrick!"_ I cough so bad I see stars. I keep going, past the parking lot, through the woods, gasping for air, sweaty and overwhelmed and scared, and soon my legs give out and I hit the dirt. Dust clogs my throat. Coughs wrack me. I choke into the earth. Somehow, I sit up. Somehow, I pull my backpack off my shoulders and find my Ventolin inside. I must use up the whole cartridge. It makes me shaky and light-headed and sick. Sick everywhere — yacking across my knees. But my throat is open again, slowly and then all at once. And I hear them stalking me.

Have to run.

Just have to.

Me and him. Always.

* * *

 

_~five months pass~_

* * *

Gone. I hate that word. Beanie is a good word. I found one. It's dark grey. I found a dog, too. She was nice. But I had to kill her because she tried to kill me. I was going to eat her, after, but I didn't. Dumb. I’ve done worse.

_...Hey._  
_What?_  
**You gonna get up yet?**

I sigh. The ceiling has a crack stretched across it that spells _SUP_. Kind of. Well, okay, not really.

“You,” I tell it anyway, since I figure making up ceiling-words is better than getting up. Crap, I need to pee, and I need my inhaler.

_Where did I put it?  
**Under the bed?**_

I make an _uh-uh_ noise, then I spot the inhaler under the curtain. The curtain, I’ll add, that I’m using as a bedsheet, all on this cardboard box, which I’m using as a mattress. I take the Ventolin. It helps. I toss it in my backpack. I get up and go to the bathroom — the window. I wait there to pee, all set up, looking out for biters but there aren’t any in the street, and then I start to pee. My stream splits two ways and falls a storey down, hitting two garden gnomes square on their pointy green hats.

_Gross._  
_Not._  
**Gross.**

A crow caws overhead. I watch it, thumbing at my beanie. I don't know why I keep it.

**_It smells almost as bad as the biters._ **

"I like it," I say, still working on not being weird. I don’t know what for. I collect my backpack, machete, and inhaler, wondering what to look for today. Candy, I decide. I don’t look for Patrick anymore.

* * *

On the walk, I have time to daydream.

I daydream about what sound colours would make, like, I think that blue would make a _splash_ and green would _rustle_ , unless it was a vibrant kind of green, then it would make a _zap-zap!_ noise. Pink goes _bling!,_ I think, and yellow just sounds like the word yellow but with an emphasized _'looow'_. I daydream what noise people would make, too. Like, I think my mother would've sounded like whatever the sound of a blooming flower sounds like. I bet it sounds soft and smooth and feels like getting your hair played with or ASMR or something. Nonno would've sounded like a newspaper page turning. My father would have sounded like a stapler — the boring kind of stapler though, not the cool ones that fire across rooms. And my noise is silence. Absolute silence. That kind of silence so quiet you can hear your own heartbeat. Though, when I think about it, I guess I’ll never really experienced that. I think there’s a lot about me I’ll never experience. Doesn’t matter. My brother would sound like knuckles cracking or a soda bottle cap popping, or that snap Lego pieces make when you connect them together; the kind of sound that's satisfying but is gone too quickly.

Whatever.

I don't like to daydream. Not all the time. I like to daydream when I daydream about comics and skateboarding and playing ukulele and listening to David Bowie. I like to daydream about what it would be like to dress in a suit and tie, or dress in a dress – because I've never done that before. But then again, I haven't worn a suit and tie before either, and I haven't eaten sushi, and I haven't been to Australia or England or Germany, and I haven't seen a zebra in real life even though I think zebra are really cool, and I won't ever, either, just like I won't ever do a lot of things, like I won't ever get taught how to drive a car. I won't ever see a music concert or grow old, probably. And I won't ever see my parents again. And I won't ever find my brother. Anyway, yes, wearing suits and ties and dresses seems like an appropriate place to start. Not today though. Today, candy.

I arrive at a small mall with a big, empty parking lot outside, debris and trash scattered everywhere. A dull atmosphere for a dull day. Even so, I see the candy store sticking out like a sore thumb from the colourful logo above the door. I don’t barge in. I check there's nothing dead or alive nearby, then wrap my fist against the window, and wait. The world stays silent. Not a nice silent either. You don’t get any nice silences anymore, not even my own silence, probably. I think that’s why I talk to myself.

The door's already been kicked in. This unnerves me. Still, sweet tooth needs a fix so I make my way inside. Machete drawn. I smell dead things, stale, too, and sweet. It’s candy. And what’s left of whoever last came in here for it. I'll get some and go. The place is almost bare. But not completely. Forgotten and kicked to the side under one isle near the back are a few candy bars. I take them all.

**_If you end up getting tooth decay, don't say you didn't warn yourself beforehand._ **

"I brush,” I say, mouth full, and turn around. _Oh._ M &M's. One packet sits at the back of a shelf. I touch it, hear the crackle under my fingertips, feel the small bumps of candy inside, then step back. "Think I'm done here."

I take a different route back through the store, stuffing my mouth with M&M's. There's a dead biter splayed across the floor this side, cut-clean in half through the torso. Other than the fact that it's been totally severed into two pieces (because that in itself is pretty odd) I end up double taking. I step closer...

Blood's still wet.

I get this instinct feeling. Run. I think of Slender Man, for some reason. I remember playing it. I'd find a note, high from relief and that small victory, until I turned around, and right there... _right there_...the tall, looming killer has found me.

In this case, now, it's a crossbow; a jet-black bolt aimed right between my eyes. I almost walk into it, yelping and reeling backwards. I land hard, throwing the M&M's across the room. The rainbow of chocolate scatters like insects, and the crossbow handler flinches as they bounce and roll off his chest to his boots.

I snatch for my machete.

"Don't, boy."

His dark hair hangs in thick, sweaty strands over a pair of bagged, narrowed eyes. His skin is dirty under a black waist coat and a shirt torn at the sleeves. I don't argue with him, instead I continue our staring contest, and then something makes a noise behind me. A woman. She shushes me, staring a stare with eyes so dark they seem all pupil, the whites glowing, and an arm outstretched... holding a katana to my throat.

"You got a name?" she asks.

Just for a second, my sound becomes a splatter.

“Name, boy...” the guy asks.

“We know you can talk,” the woman says, “we heard you a second ago.”

I nod.

I say, "Oliver."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just so you know, this story is also uploaded on FanFiction.net - feel free to read here or there. Here it's a whole piece, whereas there it's split into sequels. (dunno why i did that i'm a flaw)
> 
> Stale M&M's follows the show's arc. Non-cannon things are Oliver's addition, his impact on other characters, and a few time-stretches here and there. 
> 
> I wrote this pile of trash because a family member came out to me, which, cool dude, but I was there all in the closet too but not brave enough to say anything and obviously we both couldn't be fukin gay so I wrote this to cope. I was 17 (2014). Nothing I did made sense so let's just try not to think about the obvious otherly angst between the lines (death of the author death of the author!) and instead think about how it took me a long time to put this character into a story I liked and wouldn't give up on right away, (thanks to TWD fandom, for being so awesome/addictive). The story is a fairly slow burn, or at least it won't completely revolve around the characters' love-lives. I like to think I'm a better writer than that. Hope some of you endeering fucks enjoy.
> 
> Happy reading.


	2. The Stray

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carl bein angsty i guess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: For this one, the short centred parts (one at the start, another closer to the end) are Oliver’s perspective. The rest is ya boi.

"How many walkers've you killed?"

“ _Troppi_ — I mean, I don’t know, err, it’s too many to count.”

"How many people you killed?"

“Nobody.”

"Why?"

“I—I don’t know. I just haven’t.”

* * *

 

Michonne and Daryl are back. I’m the first to notice from the pig pen but I’m also the first to be told not to go to the gate, by Dad, who goes ahead, pushing the muck bucket into my arms. I empty it into the trough and Violet gobbles it up.

Dad and Tyreese open the gate and the spikes shove some walkers out of the way, letting Michonne drive inside and up towards the prison. Daryl’s smoking from the passenger. They were gone a while, so the truck’s open-back is full of new supplies. They found another stray, like we're some animal shelter.

“You done?” Dad asks. I nod and put the bucket outside the pen. He beckons me to walk up with them.

“Another kid,” Tyreese says, watching the truck park over in the parking lot, “looks more spooked than the last one.”

“Probably hadn’t seen somethin’ like this in a while,” Dad says, and looks at me like he does when he wants something from me. I don’t meet his face, so he pats my shoulder. “G’on, play soccer with Patrick.”

“Dad—”

“Go,” he says. “I’ll welcome the kid.”

I sigh. “‘Kay.”

Gravel cracks under our shoes while we head up the driveway and into the courtyard, diverging; me for D block while Dad and Tyreese head towards Michonne and Daryl. I watch them over my shoulder.

“Haven’t got much outa him, just his name,” Daryl says.

“He called me, ‘ma’am’,” Michonne encourages.

Dad smiles at him and holds out a hand. The boy hesitates, then shakes it. He looks my age. His sneaker has a hole in it. None of this is very interesting to me so I’m going to go inside, but then Dad asks for his machete and I wait to see what the kid’ll do. Oh. Nothing. Just hands it over and my gut sinks.

I've been stood in the doorway for too long. A girl, Teddy, from D block, walks out, bidding me a short, "Hey," as she passes that I don't return. I step aside, watching Daryl and Tyreese unpack the supplies.

“When Rick’s done taking you through some things,” I hear Michonne saying, “I’ll show you in D block, where you’ll be staying.”

I know what that means. It means she’s going to introduce him to everybody in there. I hate it. I’m always introduced as ‘Rick’s kid, the farmer’. I can either dash from D block now and disappear into the tombs alone, or I can dash to Patrick and avoid any introductions because of mandatory soccer, maybe?

Well, I don’t like the tombs.

* * *

 

Patrick’s getting dressed when I find him. He was a stray once, too. Still is, a little. But he doesn’t talk to me while I’m reading so he’s okay. I clap my hands and tell him, “Hurry up, we’re late for soccer.”

He startles, and then he laughs. “Dude, who are you and what have you done with Carl Grimes?”

“Maybe I want to play today?”

“Yeah, right.” He yanks on his shirt and leaves the cell. I follow, hoping I seem enthusiastic because I know he actually likes to play, but I can feel the boredom already heavying my shoulders as I we make our way through the cell floor. “Oh.” He stops and turns on his heel. “Forgot the ball, dude.”

He goes back for it.

Just then, Michonne and the stray come through the common room ahead. I sink again. I put my hands in my pockets and try not to look too suspicious. Luckily everyone seems to find the new kid too interesting to notice me trying to avoid meeting him. I look at Patrick’s cell.

“You got it yet?” I ask him, but he takes too long because Michonne is on to me.

"And this is Carl," she says. "Rick's kid. The farmer?"

I don’t mean to grimace. The kid doesn’t seem to notice, since he’s looking at the floor. Michonne gives me a look.

Obediently, I say, “Hi.”

Kid glances, but doesn’t say anything.

I look at Patrick’s cell, awkward.

"This is Oliver," Michonne says, and adds, “Carl...” so I look at her. Oliver gives me a smile like the smiles old people who hate each other do. I look at the cell again.

"Patrick?"

Michonne seems to give up. She tells Oliver, "C'mon..." very softly. I look at her. She looks concerned. Oliver looks sad. Did I do that? No way. He looks way too upset for it to be my fault.

"Oliver?" Patrick says, finally out of his cell, his soccer ball under his arm, standing very still. He looks upset, too. Way upset. “Oliver..."

"Pat?"

Michonne and I are glancing between them. Patrick rushes past, crying, "Oliver. Oh my God, Oliver!" and just as they come face to face, all pent up and wild, Oliver draws back his arm and punches Patrick across the face.

“Five months!”

He pins Patrick to the floor. The soccer ball flies across the cell block. Oliver hits him again, and again. Patrick folds under him, grunting and yelping.

"You were dead — five months!" Oliver chants. " _Five months!_ "

Then Michonne is yanking Oliver off. He thrashes in her headlock, screaming at the top of his lungs. Patrick is heaving. I remember my body exists and help him stand. He's trembling. He spits blood and hugs his swelling jaw. Doors crash open in the corridor. Glenn and Daryl burst into the block. They must've heard Oliver from outside. Even now he hasn't stopped. Even when they aim at him, he struggles and screams and cries.

In my head, Oliver is the boy from the woods come back to haunt me.

In my head... I kill him again.

I feel sick.

"Don't!" Patrick splutters, swallowing blood. "He's... He’s my little brother."

Everything goes quiet. The whole cell block. I don't believe it, then I look closer. I look at their faces, their likeness: long noses, underbites, brown eyes and hair and skin. Patrick has a brother.

I step back.

Patrick never talked about his family. I never asked. It’s not something you bring up.

Oliver isn't struggling anymore. Michonne lets go and he collapses to his knees. He’s still talking but not to any of us. Patrick sits closer, closer, and then he’s holding him. They cry and the rest of us watch, confused and worried until Daryl motions for us to get on with our day.

Michonne says she’ll stay, but Patrick insists she won’t need to.

"Patrick,” she says, “you should go see Doctor. S?"

Oliver looks guilty and tired. He pulls at his beanie. I've never hit somebody before, and it looks like he hasn’t either. He’s shaking. Patrick lets go of him and says, "Yes, ma'am. But I'll go in a little while. We just really need some time."

She tenses her jaw, nods, then looks at Oliver. "We do not tolerate violence here. Got that?"

He doesn’t respond.

Patrick says, “He’s got that. _Haven’t_ you?”

Oliver nods.

Michonne nods too and keeps talking to Oliver. Patrick mouths something to me but I miss it because I’m glaring at his brother. Patrick mouths it again: _Dude, chill._ And I almost roll my eyes while I turn on my heel and walk away. After a succinct, one-sided conversation, Michonne leaves shortly after me.

“Think they’ll be okay,” she tells me. “Sounds like they just need—”

“I don’t care.”

She looks at me.

“What’s wrong with you?”

 _Him,_ I think. _He just shows up, punches up a kid, and we’re letting him stay? It’s nuts. He’s nuts._ Except I don’t say any of this. I just shake my head and say, “Nothing.”

* * *

 

 “You call them walkers?”

“You’re only going to talk to me?”

“ ”

“Then you have your answer, don’t you? Anyway, do you know how I found this place after I lost you? I heard music. That song you like.

 _I—doo-doo, doo, doo-doo, doo—I can remember...I remember..._  
Standing, by the wall...by the wall...  
And the guns, shot above our heads...over our heads...”

“Heroes?”

“Heroes. I thought it was you. You like music. I... I don’t know. I just thought it was you. But the walkers were following the music too. I almost died, but... but they came. They saved me.”

“Who?”

“Glenn. Sasha. Maggie. You’ll meet them. They set up the music through a boom-box.”

“Do they still have one?”

“Have what?”

“A boom-box?”

“Dork. I’m gonna go see Doctor. S. Coming?”

“Yeah...”

* * *

Dad and I are in line waiting for supper.

"Why aren't you hanging out with Patrick?"

"His brother came back."

Dad turns and looks at me. "Excuse you?"

"His brother..." I shrug, collecting squirrel when Carol serves it up. She, too, looks completely taken off guard. I shrug again. "Kid they brought back today. Patrick's brother."

Of course, neither Dad or Carol let me get on with not talking about Oliver like I was hoping I could get on with doing, so I explain what happened, and when I'm finished Dad leaves to go and find him, because even though the Council runs this place he still has to butt his nose in.

"What's his story?" Carol asks me.

I shrug. "Didn't ask."

“Why?”

“Why would I?”

"You talk to him at all yet?"

"No."

"You gonna?"

I shrug. Dad’ll probably make me. Or Patrick will.

She's frowning, like she can read my mind. "What's wrong with this one?" she asks, like she’s tired of it. I don't mean to make this a habit; disliking the new comers, especially the kids. After Woodbury, I've done it with everybody else, too. Molly and Luke were too small. Lizzie and Mika were too sweet. Hell, Patrick still plays with Lego and I hang out with him, and I still get told I'm mean.

"Nothing," I lie.

Carol watches me. I decide I’m done talking about this kid. I decide I’m done being asked why I don’t like him when I haven’t even said that. I decide I’m done feeling bad over just another asshole in a beanie. I go and eat. Almost everyone is done eating by the time Patrick and his brother come to get food, too. Pat serves up for them both, since he works in the kitchen with Carol. He’s humming some song, looking happy.

Oliver walks funny. Like he’s not walking at all but floating; one arm hung down by his side like its dead and the other up talking like that’s where his mouth is, like the mouth on his face is just for show. He taps along the kitchen counter ledge and makes swirly patterns under his plate with his thumb, fingering sentences that only Patrick seems to understand. They are brothers, I guess. Only family could understand _Freak_ so fluently.

I realise I’m being mean again, so I stuff my face.

"Hello. Guys..."

Patrick is standing at the end of the table with his brother. The look spookily similar, especially now that Oliver has washed. He’s stepping on Patrick’s foot but he’s ignoring him.

“This is my brother. Oliver. His birthday is September thirtieth. He’s fifteen, I think — wait, it’s October right now, right?”

There are a few nods around the table from Michonne and Maggie and Glenn.

Patrick grins. “Of course, my brother would tell you this himself if he weren’t such a nerd, and hadn’t asked me to do it for him beforehand. Thank you, and you may go on with your meals now...”

He sits down next to me. Oliver looks mortified as he sits too, opposite him, next to Michonne. Patrick’s still grinning. Glenn snickers. Maggie makes a sympathetic moan noise. Michonne tuts. I eat.

"Doctor. S fix your face?" Glenn asks, pointing a fork at the bruise on Patrick’s mouth.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Patrick says.

Oliver keeps his eyes down and away, and begins his meal, frowning hard like he’s never seen food before and he can’t quite believe it. It’s a little sad, looking at him. Except I can’t tell if that’s just me being mean again, so I stop. We do that awkward eye contact thing and I look at my food. The silence is awkward on our end of the table, while Maggie and Glenn talk easily. Michonne breaks it.

"Carl, I got you something."

She fishes into her jacket pocket and pulls out a packet of M&M's. I take it. When I let Patrick have some, he glances at his brother and they seem to have a telepathic conversation together. Again, it’s sad, but I’m not being mean this time.

I only offer some to Oliver when Michonne kicks me under the table before I look rude. However, Oliver declines.

“Michonne.” I grimace. “Think they're stale."

She scoffs, expecting the packet back.

"No, no, I’ll eat them... it’s just kinda gross."

She glares playfully, but accepts a few more that I offer to her. I pretend not to notice Oliver smiling.

After a while, Maggie and Glenn leave, and the rest of us don’t talk much. Patrick keeps on humming that song, singing after long. Still, it's hard to be social when Oliver has an annoying habit of keeping absolutely quiet almost his whole life. His eyes just watch. _Watch, watch, watch._ Like he's taking mental-notes. He doesn't share.

Michonne kicks me under the table again.

I jump. Except she isn’t kicking me to make me stop staring. It was an accident and she’s just standing up. She leaves to wash her dish. I’m done eating but I don’t leave with her. I’m still supposed to be hanging out with Patrick, after all.

After long, he starts messing with Oliver.

"Going for the hippie-slash-walker-slayer look then?"

He plucks the hat from Oliver's head. His hair flops outward all over the place, like it’s alive. It’s long. Almost as long as mine. I'm not sure why I find this surprising. Surprising might not be the right word. I look at my empty plate, and I stop thinking about it.

Patrick goes on taunting.

“Talk,” he says.

Oliver struggles for the hat for a minute, then stops and ignores him.

“Talk, and I’ll give it to you.”

Oliver looks at me desperately, not like he wants my help but like he wishes I wasn’t there.

“Come on, dude, just talk.”

Oliver shuts his eyes.

“Say anything. Say anything and I’ll—”

And Oliver erupts: "Shove a condom on your head! If you're gonna be such a dick, you might as well dress like one." Oliver’s snatched his hat back before he’s finished his own sentence.

Patrick stares at him, astounded.

I stare at them.

Oliver notices, and looks relieved, like we're on the same side and we are because I’m smiling. I stop it.

"Dude,” Patrick says, like he thinks we’re funny. I don’t know why.

“You should stop calling me that,” I tell him.

“What?”

"It's always _sir_ or _ma'am_ for everybody else, except me,” I answer. “Except _us_." And now Oliver and I are _definitely_ on the same side, no matter how much I like it or not like it.

"Jeez!" Patrick complains. "Pick on me, why don't you? What would you prefer? Young sir?"

"How about our actual names?" I suggest.

"Nahh, I'm actually quite liking young sir now." We watch him decide in this moment that it's the best idea he's ever had. "Yeah, actually that'll work."

I exchange a glance with Oliver. He grins all crooked and under-bitten. I shouldn’t have eaten those stale M&M's.

"Think I preferred dude," Oliver whispers under his breath.

I watch his eyebrows. They jump up. I wonder if I'm supposed to reply. Except it occurs to me that as well as Oliver being the kind of boy who doesn't say a lot of words, he's also the kind of boy that doesn't need a lot of words back either. So I say nothing. I look away. I put my head on my arm and wait for them to finish eating.

Patrick sings under his breath again:

 _"I, I can remember..._  
_Standing, by the wall..._  
 _And the guns, shot above our heads..._  
 _And we kissed, as though nothing could fall..._  
 _And the shame was on the other side._  
 _Oh, we can beat them, for ever and ever._  
 _Then we could be Heroes, just for one day."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying out a thing with the point of view changes...


	3. A Walking Biblioteca

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Oliver has Misery in his pants far too often.

In a week, I’ve probable said around seven words to someone other than my brother. That’s one word per day. That’s good, for me at least. And it’s okay living here, too. I found a name carved under my bed, _Crighton Dallas Wilton_ , which was cool. And the prison doesn't feel so alien—and I don’t, living in it. Sometimes I still get these cornered zoo animal moments, like they're all part of a song that I don't have a beat to, but I'm getting used to it.

First thing, every morning, I go to the library. I love the library. Beth, the girl with the blonde hair and the scars on her wrist, showed me this one part of the library where she keeps all her favourite poetry books. There’s one I read now called _'Time'_.

 _'It's too slow for those who wait,_  
_Too swift for those who fear,_  
_Too long for those who grieve,_  
_Too short for those who rejoice._  
_But for those who love,  
Time is not.'_

I love it.

I sometimes wonder if I love too much for a boy who's only just turned fifteen. I love chocolate and I love the colour red and I love the smell of the earth after a storm. Maybe I just don't know enough. Maybe I'm just a boy who thinks he loves things that he really only just likes a lot. At fifteen, all you need to know how to talk to people and how to not fall over your own feet. But then again, I'm no good at talking to people, and I bump into things all the time, especially lately.

Maybe I'm just an idiot.

**_Yeah, that sounds about right._ **

Anyway, library.

I _really_ love the library.

I already have a bunch of books in my cell, but I'm still looking through the _Horror_ section for more. It's not necessarily stealing. I'll return them, eventually. But really, _Horror_. Steven King to be specific. King is the source of all good nightmares. The bad ones come from biters, or, walkers. I like to cancel out the bad nightmares with the good ones. And I guess they're all bad, really, but at least they aren't all real.

I notice something.

The farmer’s kid. Carl.

I see him through the shelves, in the aisle next to mine. _Fantasy_. I look up above me at the sign and realise I'm in _Romance_ now. I frown. I look at him again. He's looking at me, through the shelves, caught between _The Scarlet Letter_ and _Women to Love_. I look away, at my book, _Misery_. Fitting. When I look up again, Carl isn't there, and I hear the library door creak and catch sight of his flannel shirt shoulder as he disappears and the door shuts behind him.

Carl confuses me.

We’re friends. But we aren’t.

I roll my eyes and put _Misery_ in my pants.

* * *

Ten minutes later, Pat and I are doing chores with Carol. I think I love chores, too. Still, I'm the world's worst cook, so I mostly stay away from the hot parts. _Misery_ is still hiding in the back of my pants and I keep having to awkwardly adjust it with my back to the counter so nobody catches me.

_I’ll return it. Swear._

The outside cafeteria’s quiet this morning. Pat and Carol are cooking while I serve. It's squirrel today; Daryl caught them all earlier. A pile of dirty dishes are dumped next to me, and because that's my job, too, I get to washing.

At some point, Carl heads over carrying a soccer ball. He ate earlier, since C block are the early risers, so he goes to wait at a bench not far away. Pat goes to talk to him and part way through their conversation they both turn to look at me, catching me trying to translate their conversation in my head, so I stop watching them, and then Patrick laughs and returns to me, rolling his eyes, and in the most bored voice ever, he says, "Carl wants me to tell you that Rick wants you to join us later?"

Carl walks away.

Patrick laughs again. “But I guess I wasn’t supposed to say the first part.”

“What?” I ask, lost.

“It’s what he just told me to ask you?”

I find this funny because it’s the kind of crap I’d pull, but I don’t laugh, because I’d hate that, so I shrug. “Is it going to be soccer? I don’t like soccer.”

Pat shrugs and asks, " _Hai detto sì?_ " which means: Is that a yes? all sarcastic and ass-like.

I roll my eyes, say, " _Si._ "

Allison's waiting for a plate. I serve up. After a while, Carol dismisses us and Pat and I head down to the gardens to find Carl, then he comes up to the courtyard to find somewhere to play soccer. There are already a few kids out here, playing dodge ball. Both Carl and I say no to joining, but Patrick says his vote to join over-rules both of ours because he's older, so we join the game. It’s fun, I guess, but my crap-for-breathing lungs make me take a break. I've still got my inhaler, and there are spares in the infirmary. I sit and watch for a little while. I can breathe but I'd like it to stay that way without my lungs arguing with me.

Carl gets sent out at some point. I hear Molly cry out his disqualification and see him lying on his back with a basketball rolling away from him. "Dammit," he whispers, and gets up.

He sits with me on the side-lines.

"You out, too?"

In answer, I raise my inhaler.

He wipes the sweat from his forehead, nodding.

"How old were you? When you got it—or, when you were diagnosed," he asks next.

I tug my beanie, getting this feeling like his dad’s getting him to talk to me.

"Five." Word of the day down, I guess.

"Will it go away?"

 _Oh. Uh —_ I shrug because I don’t know.

Carl looks sorry for me. I hate that so I say, "Oxygen’s overrated."

"Sure." I watch how hard he tries to hold his lips and face still. “Who needs... air. Hey, I think Aquaman might have a place for you.”

I nod seriously, and suddenly we crack up like fireworks.

“I miss comics,” I tell him.

“You do?”

I shrug.

"Well, Michonne brings them back from her runs sometimes,” Carl says. “I got a whole bunch in my cell." His accent got thicker, like he'd forgotten what shape his mouth was. He sits back and clears his throat.

I think of last week, meeting him and thinking his soul sound was a drip from a broken tap, but I get a feeling like Carl's soul song might actually sound like a river, maybe, only it’s all damned up by some crotchety old beaver.

"D'you wanna go read some?" he asks me.

I nod. Carl stands and heads towards his block.

“C’mon!” he says.

“Okay.”

* * *

C block is at the end of a short, dim hallway, but the common room and cell block are bright and colourful. Carl and I are debating over who’s better between Wolverine and Ironman.

“Iron man?” Carl asks. “What—no, Wolverine would destroy him. Wolverine is invincible. You can't beat that."

I roll my eyes.

"Whatever.” He moves on. “What about Wolverine versus Superman? He's invincible, too."

I snicker. “They’re not even in the same universe.” I can tell by Carl rolling his eyes that he already knows this. We turn into C block's common room. I hold the door open for him.

"Well, I think Superman,” he says, “'cause he's super strong. All he'd have to do is just crush Wolverine into a tiny piece of indestructible metal." He demonstrates with his hands the sort of action flattening a soda can looks like. "Right?"

I agree, and then I bust up laughing.

"What?" He drops his hands and starts laughing, too. There's so much laughing C block is spilling with it.

"I was just thinking," I say finally, "Wolverine could just run Superman a bath or something, then just throw liquid Kryptonite in the water. He'd be rendered powerless, so Wolverine could just stab him through the heart."

"In what scenario," he gasps through his laughter, "would Wolverine ever have to run Superman a bath?"

"Maybe they live together."

"Like roommates?"

I was thinking as boyfriends, but it’s probably not a good thing to stab your boyfriend through the heart. So instead I say, “Guess.”

Carl leads the way through the cell block. Carol is sitting on the stairs cooing to the baby. She’s Carl’s sister but I don’t remember her name. I only ever hear people call her little ass kicker. Rick’s talking to them. They ask how we’re doing and we say we’re fine and then Rick leaves. Carol gives the baby to Carl. And he tries to give her to me.

“I might drop her,” I say.

“Yeah,” Carol says, “try not to.”

"It's not rocket science," Carl says.

I manage, a little awkwardly, but manage all the same.

“Err, what’s her name again?” I ask.

“Judith. Or Judy. Or—”

“Little ass kicker.”

We grin.

“You can thank Daryl for that,” Carol says. I like Daryl a lot more now than when I first met him, but I still feel bad for throwing candy at him.

Judith puts her head on my chest and I can feel my face crunching up, like I’ve been blessed by the cute baby Gods or something.

"Well, she doesn't hate you," Carl says. I let him take her and hand her back to Carol. He smacks my arm. "C’mon."

“Okay.”

Carol catches me before I go. “See you later?” she asks me, like we have a secret because we do. I nod, and then I follow Carl to his cell. He’s crouched under the cot when I get there, pulls out some comics. I pull my beanie, hold back from hopping on the spot.

“Speaking of ass kickers,” he says, and hands me Kick Ass.

I read it hungrily.

"He's alright," he goes on, reading over my shoulder. "But he doesn't really have super powers.”

“Neither does Black Widow, or Iron Man, but you like them.”

“Yeah, because they’re good at what they do. Kick Ass just has a wetsuit... and a weird thing for his biology teacher.”

“Kick Ass is _trying_ , man.”

He laughs at me. “So you’ve read it?”

“Yeah, but honestly, I’m just happy reading a comic book again,” I explain. “I had a whole bookshelf of them once. Not like a regular bookshelf either but one the size of my wall.”

“I like the illustrations a bunch,” Carl says. “I draw them, and sometimes I just draw my own.”

I sit on his bed and let him show me some of them. They’re great. Really great. He’s drawn the prison, too. I tell him I love them and his face goes red. And then he puts the drawings away and we read comics for a while, until it’s midday and I remember I’m supposed to be someplace.

“Storytime,” I blurt, rolling over—I’d been lying on my back with my feet up on the side-wall. Carl’s slouched on his front, toes on the wall at the pillow-end of the bed.

“Oh,” he says, “yeah, you go to that.”

I shrug.

“Why?” he asks.

I don’t tell him because it’s the secret I’m not supposed to tell anybody, except the Carol and the other kids, except Carl.

“Whatever,” he says. "Later, Oliver.”

“Yeah, man.”

I turn and walk away.

* * *

Everyday, in the library, Carol teaches us a new survival skill. We can’t tell because parents, especially Rick, would try to stop it. They don’t think we’re old enough. Carl has to stay in the dark, too, because he tells his father everything. First day I came, we learned how to handle handguns and rifles. Second day, it was how to kill walkers. Third, how to make our own water filters and light a fire. Fifth, set a snare. Yesterday, it was how to treat wounds and infections. Today, it’s poisonous food from edible ones. It’s my turn to keep watch for anybody coming, but even from the library door, I can watch the lesson. She pulls out a small box from under her seat and opens it, and inside is a variety of mushrooms and strange looking fruit and roots. They're all a little wrinkled and aged.

"Now, who can tell me which of these are edible and which are poisonous? Anyone?"

No one answers. I keep watch, and also watch her lesson. I can see an amaryllis bulb in there. I wish I’d had this lesson a few months ago, when I’d eaten one I found in a box; I still don’t remember anything afterwards except waking up days later in a pool of my own vomit, piss and shit... After long, Tyreese is heading up the corridor. I give the signal and Carol quickly conceals the boxes and reads a book, while the others stay silent and I look at a bookshelf acting like nothing happened, until Tyreese passes by, and the lesson continues.

I think Carol’s soul sound is the flames crackling after an explosion, and the black smoke, fizzling up up up through the sky.

"Class dismissed."

I head back to D block with Patrick. Half way there, I realise I’d picked up a book in the library. I figure I can at least read it before I take it back, so I pocket it. Not long after we get back and settle for the evening, Carl arrives. He asks how storytime was and we both shrug. I feel a little guilty, but I brush it off anyway and start reading.

"What book is that?" Patrick asks.

"Elsewhere..." I skim over the blurb. “Fantasy.”

“Thought you were more for horror," he says.

"That why you were in the romance section this morning?" Carl asks.

I can feel my face heat up while I glare at him, and just to prove him wrong, I pull _Misery_ out of my pants and start reading that instead.

Patrick laughs.

“You’re a walking _biblioteca_.”

I ignore him, and together, the three of us read the sun down into the horizon again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem "Time" was written a long time ago by my grandmother, who gave me permission to use the poem. Hope you all enjoyed.
> 
> Happy reading.


	4. Just to do it Again

This morning, I’m woken up an hour early by Carl intruding mine and Patrick’s cell, and I’m not in a great mood because the way he woke me was by smacking me in the head with my book, Butterfly Lion.

"That was cold," I grumble, "even for you."

“Find some clothes, we're headed out,” Carl says, then stands up and shakes Patrick’s top cot. "Wake up.”

“Ugh, dude.”

Groaning, I pull up my sleeping bag and collapse back into my pillow. "We don't have kitchen duty until the shadow lines up with the chalk mark."

“Wait, what?”

Without looking, I point at the floor.

“Oh. Whoa. You guys marked the time on your floor,” Carl says.

I shrug, and I don’t hear him leave so I look at him. He’s just standing there, leaning against my cot rail waiting for us.

“We’re doing something else today,” he says.

“Garden duty is your job,” Patrick grumbles.

Carl frowns, like he’s offended. He says, "Dad wants us to fix a leaky roof."

I sit up. The cell is glowing orange. I never seen it this early so I’ve never really noticed. It’s nice, with bright orange streaks lining across the cement and in Carl’s hair. Colour's not something I get to see a lot anymore. Michonne's rainbow cat is something, I guess, and the fresh food.

“Come on,” Carl hurries us, “I might not get a chance to do something not farm related again.”

We both get up and shuffle around for our things.

“Your dad took your gun, right?” I ask.

Carl’s face closes up a little.

I add, “He took my machete, too.”

“I know. I saw.”

“Do you know where it is?”

Carl nods. He doesn’t say where. I don’t ask.

“I can't even imagine you using a gun,” I say instead, while Patrick does up his shoelaces, “or even killing a walker.”

“Guess I’m not the kind of boy you think I am.”

The silence is strange.

Patrick breaks it. “If you’re both done?”

“Right,” Carl says, and steps back, “come on. Said we’d meet him by the main building.”

I let them both lead the way, thinking in my head that I’m not the kind of boy Carl thinks I am either. Not the kind of boy even my brother thinks I am. Thinking that if I tell them, or anyone, they might act differently around me. I don’t like keeping secrets, and I only have two: storytime, and... something else. And I know what it makes me. Or, what it doesn't make me. I've known for a while. But, I don’t know, really, it doesn’t even matter. It’ll never matter because it’s not like I’ll ever act on it, so it doesn’t concern anybody except me. That’s it. It’s always been my thing.

* * *

 

The roof doesn’t take us long. I guess Rick just wanted to show us how. We climb down the ladder one at a time. Patrick found a few lost tennis balls, and had been throwing them down as we were working, and now he’s gathering them all up in a bowl made from his shirt.

"That should hold," Rick says. He takes the tool box and heads back to the main prison building. "Thanks, you three."

“Sure, Mr. Grimes,” Patrick waves, even though Rick’s turned away. I shake my head, embarrassed. Carl, too, seems unimpressed. When Pat turns back to us, he looks at us both and says, “What?”

Carl just shakes his head.

“Hey,” I say, “I found a way out of the prison through that block they cleared recently, the office blocks, wanna check it out?”

Carl turns to me. “What?”

“Yeah,” I say, “there’s a door that goes out to that big, blocked-off parking lot. The one that has all the blown-up fences?”

“I didn’t know about that. We should tell someone—”

“Er,” Pat cuts in, “he doesn’t mean he actually leaves, do you?”

I look at him. I look at Carl. I look at my brother again and shake my head. “I don’t,” I say, and it’s true. “You don’t have to tell your dad. The door’s usually locked...” I trail. “I just... like to sit in it sometimes. It’s nice... I thought we could...”

“Nothing,” Patrick says, putting a free hand on my shoulder. “You thought nothing.”

 _Right,_ I think, _more secrets._

I smile.

“Alright!” Patrick chirps. “I’m gonna go take these back to the supply shed. The others’ll be stoked.”

We watch him go, but even when he’s gone, Carl seems suspicious. “You know, I don’t tell my dad ‘everything’,” he tells me, frowning.

“Sorry.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“I am,” I say, “I don’t mean to keep stuff from you.”

“But you still do,” he says, and I’m too scared to say anything. Carl sighs. “Well, can we go see the locked door, that leads out? I won’t tell. Swear.”

I can work with that, so I lead the way. The office blocks are still boarded, but easy enough to break into. Since this building was cleared recently, the walker bodies haven’t been moved out and burned yet, so inside, they lay everywhere, rotting along every dim corridor and office. The smell is terrible, and the air is hot and thick and dusty; barely made for mouth-breathers, let alone asthmatics.

“Dad’ll kill me if he knows we’re here,” Carl says. I look at him. “Sorry, but he would. We should at least have something as a weapon, just in case.”

I hand him a police baton from a desk, then unhinge a broken radiator pipe for myself.

“D’you know how to kill them? Sometimes—”

“Yeah,” I say, holding the pipe firmly. “I know.”

Carl nods, and leads the way, then realises he doesn’t _know_ the way.

I snicker.

“What?” he asks.

“You like it, don’t you?” I ask. “Breaking rules.”

He frowns. “No.”

“Liar.”

"Hypocrite,” he says. I feel my face stiffen. His softens, and he sighs. “Look, there could be strays. The way in was boarded. God, this is such a bad idea.”

“But you’re still here.”

“Because _you_ are.”

I smile at him, thinking again that I was wrong about his soul sound. It’s not a tap. Not a damned-up river. I think his soul sounds like the ocean.

I find the right door after several wrong turns. The room is dim, but not enough to be scary, and the locked door is white and heavy-looking. The key is on a desk.

“That’s weird,” I say.

“What?”

“I left it in the door.”

We look around.

“Guess someone else knows about it,” Carl says.

Using the key, I unlock the door. It creaks open loudly. The sun is bright across half of the parking lot, leaving the ground in front of us for a few feed shadowed by the building. I prop the door open with a broken brick, then sit on the step. Carl joins me. We watch the ruined parking lot.

“No walkers,” Carl says.

I point to a part of the fence that’s broken and boarded up with wood. “Can’t get through. It’s safe.”

“It’s nice.”

I smile.

“That’s where Tyreese and Sasha came in,” Carl says. “I found them in there.” He points at another building facing the parking lot, blown open completely on one side. It’s the blocked off side of a C block.

“Pat says Sasha came up with the boom box thing,” I say, “for luring the walkers to different places.”

“Yeah.”

I get up. “Stay here a sec. I’ll be right back.”

Carl doesn’t have much time to argue, and I’m not gone for long. I’d found some things last time I came here. I bring them, and he looks very peaceful, sitting there, passing time by throwing rocks out into the parking lot.

He looks behind him when he hears me. “A radio?”

“Battery operated,” I say, setting it in the doorway behind him, “and this, too.” I hand an MP3 player over his shoulder.

“I don’t really listen to music.”

“That’s terrible.”

He cracks up and takes the MP3 player anyway, fiddling with it. “You like music?"

I nod. “I really like music. Kings of Leon. Bowie. Oh, man, so many. I like playing it, too. Guitar, ukulele, some keyboard.”

“I guess I used to listen to Weird Al sometimes,” Carl says.

I grimace. “Why?”

“On the car radio, it was funny. You know, that one song? _‘There’s a smelly old bum sitting next to me_ —”

“Stop, please.”

“— _hasn’t showered in a year’._ ”

“You’re the worst!”

We laugh and it feels great.

I shrug. “To be honest, I’d still listen to it... Swear if I don't find something other than my breathing to listen to, my ears are gonna run away. And everything's so _grey_ here, my eyes are already contemplating suicide."

He doesn’t find that as funny as I think he will.

"Kidding," I say.

He lightens up.

"You help though,” I add.

He looks at me. "What?"

"You have colour.” I point at his eyes one at a time. "Blue."

He smiles. Carl has a nice smile. He hands me back the MP3. “Needs headphones.”

I take it apart. “And the radio needs batteries.” The two inside the MP3 player are good enough, so I get to setting up the radio.

“Thanks for bringing me,” Carl says.

I shrug. “You asked me to.”

Carl looks embarrassed. “I just... If there’s stuff you don’t tell me — it’s just...”

“It’s fine, man.”

“I know, I just... I hate knowing you don’t tell me stuff. You totally should tell me stuff, if you want to. If it’s stuff you don’t want me to tell anyone, I won’t. I swear.”

I look at him. “Really?”

He nods.

“Well, you too, then.”

“Okay,” he says.

We’re quiet for a long time. I think he wants me to tell him a secret, but I’m too scared. I want to, though. It’s just... this isn’t the way I was expecting it to happen. I don’t know what I was expecting, really. And then I figure, just do it, so I’m about to own up, to just come out with my deepest, darkest, longest held secret, except I cop out and ask him if he’s ever had a girlfriend and I hate myself for it. He hasn’t, and he asks me if I have, and I tell him no. I tell him that I’ve kissed a girl, though, and that she was my best friend, and then I tell him that a boy at school once kissed me after he’d spent a few years bullying me, and that I ran away because it’s weird to kiss someone who is mean to you, and then I tell him another boy kissed me, after the turn, except it wasn’t as weird because we were friends, and that afterwards, he died.

“Oh,” Carl says.

I’m missing parts but I'm not brave enough to say them. Still, we talk about it a little more. Mostly the boy part. I tell him it’s not something I do a lot because it feels like it’s something I should say, and I tell him, “It’s just a thing. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t count,” and I think it’s a bigger lie than not telling him at all, but he believes me, so I can catch my breath for a while and change the subject, and at some point later, he notices a book and a music album in my pocket. Twins. And Noah and the Whale.

“You carry too many books in your pants,” he says.

“Yeah,” I say, thinking he doesn’t know the half of it. “But these are worth it. I found them on a total fluke. I had them both as a kid.”

“You do that a bunch,” he says.

“What?”

“Re-do stuff.”

I shrug. "Sometimes it's nice to remember."

“Sometimes it’s not.”

“Sometimes it’s healthy.”

“Sometimes it isn’t.”

I roll my eyes.

"Fine,” I say. “You win.”

Carl grins. It fizzles out. “So, what was it like, you know, to be kissed?” he asks, and I’m not sure what to say because I thought we were done with this topic, and I must look disappointed because he adds, “Well, I mean, I just want to know. It’s not like I’ll ever find out myself.”

I scoff, hating this. “You’ll find a girl one day, man.”

“Yeah, yeah. I just want to hear it from you — what it’s like.”

“I don’t really know. It’s only three kisses.”

“Three more than me.”

I sigh.

He waits.

“You ever been kissed there, on your forehead?”

“Guess,” he says.

“It’s like that,” I say, pointing, “just, not on your forehead.”

He doesn’t look convinced.

“Here,” I say. “Shut your eyes, man.”

“What?”

“I can’t do it if you’re staring at me.”

He looks at me, then relents and shuts his eyes. “Just on the forehead, right?”

“Yeah, man,” I complain. “Jesus.”

“Okay...” he says. A breeze blows up against the building, rushing through us into the empty room. It billows his hair around and I reach forward and brush some of it out of his eyes. He finds this funny, but tries to keep his face still.

“Ready?” I ask.

He nods, so I kiss his forehead.

“See?” I say. “Like that, just... on the mouth.”

Carl’s face is red.

“What?” I ask, feeling like my face might be, too. “You asked.”

“Whatever.”

I finish up with the radio, pressing buttons until a blue light flickers, flashes, and then the music starts.

 _"Well I'd give it all back just to do it again,_  
yeah, I'd turn back time, be with my friends.  
Yeah, I'd give it all back just to do it again,  
turn back time, be with my friends."

We listen to the music and watch the parking lot for a bit. Some walkers hear the music and bash against the fences, but we take no notice. Not until the whole album is over and we don’t even notice because we’re talking. Finally, Carl takes the radio and switches something. It goes to static. He messes with the tuner, not really paying attention, I don’t think. Just passing time.

Then a voice comes through.

_"–anctu... for all – mmunity for –– Those who arrive, sur—"_

It cuts out, and there’s just static.

Carl looks frustrated. "It's probably far away.”

“Could it be that place,” I say carefully, “err, Burywood or whatever?"

"Woodbury. No, it's burnt to the ground," he says. I know the story. It’s a legend. But I get a feeling like I shouldn’t ask about it. He keeps trying for a better signal. When he gives up, I switch the radio off and carry it, then he head back through the offices together.

“Can I keep the MP3?” Carl asks once we’re back outside in the courtyard, heading to D block. “For my dad. I think he has headphones. Plus, he gets tinnitus sometimes from being a cop, so the music might help during farming.”

I nod.

We go in my cell. Patrick’s out, so the room is quiet and messy. I go around it and tidy. “You really won’t tell?” I ask Carl.

He looks at me like he’s not sure what I mean. I’m not sure either. He shakes his head anyway. “I won’t tell.”

I grin at him, and then I punch him for good measure. He pushes me, then grabs me and we bust up laughing trying to trip each other up. I trip him, and he collapses on the cot, giving up. I give up too and lie next to him on my back, catching my breath.

“I should go feed Violet,” Carl says.

“Okay.”

He doesn’t move.

"See you, man," I add.

"See you," he whispers.

Still here, so I look over at him.

"Thanks for today, man," I say. “Was fun.”

He smiles wider, and then, quickly, rolls over and kisses my cheek, and I'm not sure who I am anymore, because I'm floating away like a balloon and he getting up and disappearing out of my cell and someone upstairs is humming and the trees outside are rustling and I am a lot of things all at once, like the cement on the walls and the lumps in my pillow and the stale, musky air and the water dripping in the washroom, and then his footsteps are gone and I’m just grinning up at the underside of Patrick’s cot.

* * *

 

For the rest of fall, the prison keeps me busy. I do chores. I clean my cell. I go to storytime, and I hang out with my brother and Carl. Tonight, I can’t sleep, and Patrick is snoring, so I sneak out.

C block’s tombs are creepy, worse when I’m alone in the dark. I've heard the horror stories. The Governor’s army. T-Dog, who got ripped apart to save Carol. The old prisoners. How Judith was born in the boiler room, but her mom—Carl’s mom—didn't make it. I’m lucky enough to make it out alive.

Standing in his cell door, shivering, I shine my flashlight in the cot occupant’s eyes. He grunts and wakes up, then puts out a hand. "Oliver? Knock it off."

“How’d you know it was me.”

“You’ve snuck into my block almost every night for three weeks — at this point, I’m expecting you.”

I try not to look too flattered by that because I’m not sure it was a compliment.

“Do you have my inhaler?” I ask. “I think I left it in—"

He hands it over. I pocket it, then climb across his bed and sling an arm over his stomach. Carl curls up sleepily. It’s nice being so close to him, but sometimes I wonder if we’re too close — sometimes, late at night, we’ll put a comic book behind his dirty magazines and read them in secret together. Probably weird. He doesn’t seem to care though, so I try not to think about it.

He plucks my flashlight from my hand. It’s one of those ones that has three settings; dim, bright, and _blinding flashes._ First, we’re blinded, but then Carl fixes it to dim and shines it at the wall next to us. He makes shapes with his hands, and I write words with his hair onto his shoulder because he lets me do that sometimes.

_you_

_are_

_cool_

It’s good that his hair can’t read, and that he doesn’t know I use it as a form of one-way communication.

“You’re shivering,” he says.

“It’s cold in the tombs. I almost froze my balls off—” He pulls his sleeping bag over me. “Thanks —and, yeah, believe it or not, I actually value functioning reproductive organs. I might need them one day."

“You sure about that?”

“Har har,” I complain.

Carl hums, then goes a little quiet. “Dumb joke. Sorry.”

I shrug, thinking I should have just told him that day in the office blocks —I like guys, too— Instead of beating around it, because it’s worse now, not knowing if he really knows and just won’t say it either. It’s worse now because he was so nice about it.

“I wasn’t going to come tonight,” I tell him.

“Bad dreams?”

I shrug.

“I get them, too,” he says.

“I never remember them. I just wake up scared.”

Carl sighs. “I dream of the prison. And I’m with them, the walkers. I run and I run but they’re always faster than me. And they get me before I can stop them...”

His heart is beating very quickly.

“Oliver...”

I mumble something and look at him. He’s staring at something, shining the torch at it. I look and see a massive spider crawling along the wall next to our heads. It stops in the flashlight and we both leap out of the cot, spooking it, because it disappears under his bed.

I shiver hard. "I _hate_ spiders."

“It’s okay. I can get it.”

“No, no. We should just go. I can’t stay in your room, man.”

Carl groans.

“Please,” I beg.

"Okay. Okay. We’ll check on Violet."

I nod, already leaving, keeping my eyes on the wall. "How is she?"

“Pregnant,” Carl answers. “Let me put on my boots.”

* * *

 

Outside, it's freezing. _Ball freezing._ But the growling's worse. We can hear it. And it's so loud. It always is, but at night it's deafening. Carl shuts us inside the fence and clicks his teeth for the pig. Flame, Michonne's horse, is still gone from her paddock.

“Violet?”

I see her in the shelter, lying down. “Wait, what’s that moving?”

Carl looks closer, then gasps. “Oh, whoa... Yes. Violet. You did it!” He kneels beside her and examines each piglet carefully. He looks at them like he’s naming them in his head. I know it. “Oliver, get over here. Look at them.”

I’m still just standing here, keeping watch even though I know the guards are up on duty at each watch tower. I kneel next to Violet and her babies. Carl is petting her gently, whispering how much of a good girl she is.

“You love this, too, huh?”

He looks at me.

“Farming,” I add.

He scoffs. “No.”

“You do. You love it like you love breaking the rules,” I say. “You just act like you hate it so your dad doesn’t treat you like a kid.”

Carl is frowning at me. I think he’ll argue, but all soft and quiet, he just says, “It’s not that.” He thinks for a second through the jangling and growling of the fence across the field. “I mean, how can you be two things at the same time?” he adds. “How can you spend your life _Playing Farmer_ and also be...” He stops, groans, and stands up. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

He paces a few steps, then turns to me.

“I just... I don’t wanna disappoint him, but it just feels wrong, like we’re pretending, like we’re just sitting here... waiting for—”

_CLANG!_

We startle. Even over the growling, the fence is louder. We watch it dip, swing, and crash against the secondary fence. _CRASHCRUNCHCHLANG!_ It holds, just. Guards are yelling. Last month this happened on another part of the fence. A guy died. Beth marked it in her calendar. _0 Days Without an Accident._ Twenty-nine days now. The Council have set up schedules for when and where to take out clusters now, but it’s getting bad again.

Carl and I are still standing here in the mud, panting and catching up with our heartbeats, and then I realise he's taken my hand — or I've taken his. We don't let go. Instead, we leave the paddock, hand-in-hand, and it's because of _the dark_ and _the spider_ and _the angry fence walkers_ that neither of us say anything about it. Once we’re inside, I guess I should let go but I don’t because he doesn’t, and then we’re just standing here in the middle of his cell, holding hands, only it’s not just because of the dark or the spider or the walkers anymore. I think he’ll leave, let go, tell him to go back to my cell. But I don’t want to so I step forward and I kiss his forehead. I look at him. His eyes are shut. I kiss his cheek, too. And he lets me. He puts a hand on my chest, and I’m not sure what I’m doing or what is happening, and I guess I figure it doesn’t matter because I said it didn’t, before, when we talked about kissing boys, and he believed me, and I think I’m bad for that, and I must hesitate too long thinking about it because he opens his eyes again.

“You okay?”

“Sorry,” I say, and step back, pulling my hand out of his. “Sorry. Err...” I force a smile. “You should come by the cafeteria after you're done with Violet and the piglets. There’s still leftover venison from what Daryl brought back. There’s not much, though, so... I’ll save you some.”

Then, before he can say anything, I rush out of C block.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The holding hands bit was inspired by a Fangirl sub-chapter by Rainbow Rowell.
> 
> Happy reading.


	5. Season 4 ~ 30 Days Without an Accident: Bite Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And here begins season 4! Whoop!

_On my last night on earth, I want to look to the sky_   
_Just breathe in the air and blink in the light_   
_On my last night on earth, I'll pay a high price_   
_To have no regrets and be done with my life_

_L. I. F. E. G. O. E. S. O. N._

_You've got more than money and sense, my friend_   
_You've got heart and you're going your own way_

_L. I. F. E. G. O. E. S. O. N._

_What you don't have now will come back again  
You've got heart and you're going your own way..._

Carol told us to get coriander from the garden this morning, to finish making the jerky. I have a song in my head, and I harvest to its beat. I step to its beat. My own heartbeat is probably beating to its beat. And then Patrick tells me he’s going to try to shake Daryl’s hand today and I try to talk him out of it but he’s already plotting.

"Oh, brother." I squint at him across the coriander patch. “Come on, man. Just don’t.”

“He was busy yesterday.”

“So? Your crush on him is embarrassing,” I say.

He laughs because he’s confident in his masculinity.

I laugh because I’m not.

We get done in the garden, waving at Rick and Carl as we head past the pig pen back up to the cafeteria. Hershel got word of the soon-to-be-jerky and offered me his last chocolate bar for the biggest piece I could find.

It’s scorching outside, so it’s nice being under the cook area canopy, in the shade, which is where I stay for the rest of chores, and after a little while, I hear Daryl's fan base before I see the man himself; people greeting him good morning and thanking him for yesterday’s venison. It's not new, his _followers_. But he still looks surprised by it.

Patrick looks star-struck. I have to throw a spoon at him to stop him gawking. Daryl and Carol talk about the clusters, then Carol holds out the prongs and asks Pat, "Patrick, you wanna take over?"

"Yes, ma'am," he says—I give him a look across the kitchen like: _don’t... don’t do it, man..._ but he does. "Uh, Mr. Dixon?"

Daryl turns. I’m already palming myself through the face.

"I just wanted to thank you, for bringing that deer back yesterday. It was a real treat, sir, and I'd be honoured to shake your hand."

Daryl glances at Carol, then me, until finally he looks back at my brother, licks the grease off his fingers, and shakes his hand. Pat looks like he’s trying not to grimace and collapse to his knees all at the same time. I'm snickering, serving a bowl of oatmeal to Dr. S.

Carol chuckles and leaves for the courtyard. Daryl follows her, nodding to me and Pat. His face is red while he gets back to cooking. I tease him about it all morning.

* * *

 

Michonne’s back. Carl told us. He’s eating the venison I promised last night, last night which I’ve been trying very hard not to think about all day. Instead I think about jerky, which is almost done, too, and I’ve had my eye on Hershel’s piece since it went in the oven.

“Heard your pig gave birth,” Pat says.

Carl, who is sitting at the canteen counter where he always sits, looks up at him, like a deer caught at the end of Daryl’s crossbow. He looks at me, then Patrick again, and through a mouthful of venison asks, “Oliver tell you?”

“No. I just saw them while I was in the garden.”

Carl’s shoulders relax. I catch his eyes and hope he knows I wouldn’t tell anyone about what happened last night, not even the pigs, but he looks away quickly. I get back to work, realising for sure I’ve made it weird between us now. I worry about it for minutes on end until Carl fetches a stool and clears some room for me to sit at the bench, and I sit next to him and eat my breakfast and we play footsie between our stool legs and the world feels set right again.

"She bought us more comics,” he says after a while, “Michonne. Said she wants to read some after us." A part of his flannel shirt is tucked in and I reach out and untuck it for him. "She didn't find any more X-Men volumes, though," he adds.

I shrug, even though this news colossally sucks.

"She found another Science Dog though."

Mid scooping in a mouthful, and without looking at him, I quickly pat my hand down on the counter top between us.

"Hey, no!" he complains. "I called dibbs on it months ago."

I glare at him.

"I have the T-shirt," Carl shoots back. On the outside, all anybody would see is an unimpressed frown. But on the inside, his grin is beaming.

I roll my eyes and eat while Pat and Carl talk about something I don’t listen to, until Pat asks where Rick is.

"Out checking snares," Carl says.

I watch the oven carefully.

Carl is looking down at his breakfast, not eating now.

I knock our kneecaps.

He looks at me, sighs, then says, "He wouldn't take his gun again." Oh, he's worried. “Even Hershel’s saying he should, when _he_ was who got Dad playing farmer in the first place.”

His cheeks are turning this mad crimson colour, so I draw his initials with his hair along his shoulder. _C G._ I stop when I realise Patrick is watching me. He raises his eyebrows. I spin in my chair and finish my food.

"Wanna play soccer?" Carl asks us.

“Do _you_ want to?” Pat asks.

Carl’s nose wrinkles. “Dad told me to.”

Pat shrugs, “I don’t know. Maybe. Not sure if I’m feeling it.”

I notice he hasn’t eaten this morning.

“We can do something else?”

Pat inhales steeply. “Ah, screw it. I’ll deal with it. Let’s go play. Oliver, you coming?”

I shake my head and wave them off as they go. I need to stay behind to finish breakfast with Carol and make sure Hershel gets his jerky and _I_ get my chocolate. People like the food so much I’m thanked a million times and I don’t know how to handle it, so I just stick with Hershel, who pays me under the table without anybody catching us. I keep the chocolate bar in my beanie, which I keep half tucked out my back pocket so it doesn’t melt.

Once done with chores, I try and catch Pat and Carl, hoping they’re done playing by now so we can go to a cell and read instead. They’re in the fields, but they aren’t playing. They’re by the fences. Walkers are outside, growling and shrieking and Patrick is there looking at them with the other kids.

Carl and Lizzie are arguing.

"What the hell are you talking about? Okay – They don't talk. They don't think. They _eat_ people. They kill people."

"People kill people," Lizzie answers. "They still have _names._ "

"Have you seen what happens? Have you seen someone die like that?"

"Yeah,” Lizzie retorts. “I have."

The staring contest between them is uncomfortable and I don’t like it. I don’t like fights. Not between living people or dead ones, and _especially_ not between living people _about_ dead ones.

"They're not people and they're not pets," Carl says flatly. " _Don't_ name them."

Lizzie watches him, then turns to her friends. "Let's jus' go read. C'mon."

They leave, except Mika. "Comin' to storytime tonight?"

Patrick glances at me and Carl—Mika Samuels is sort of attached to my brother. Sometimes she tells people he’s her big brother. It took people a little while to catch on, which confused Ryan, Mika and Lizzie’s father, for a while until it was all cleared up.

"Uh, yeah," Patrick says.

"Oliver?" she asks.

I nod yes, tugging on my beanie, aware of the way Carl looks at me.

"See you then!" Mika grins, rising on tiptoes.

She leaves and despite Carl’s earlier annoyance, he’s smirking at us.

"We go sometimes," Patrick defends us. "We're immature."

I glare at him, but I don’t argue because I have to play along.

"You wouldn't dig it. It's for kids," Pat says.

Carl snickers at the floor, nodding.

Pat tugs my arm. "We're gonna head up there, too. Catch you later, young sir."

Pat walks away. I don’t, yet. Carl is looking at me. And I’m looking at him, too. I watch him smile from the inside out and I feel like I've been shot, so I frown. Frowning is sometimes the only defence mechanism against him that I have.

I turn away, and even though I haven’t said anything, Carl says, “Yep,” as if I did.

* * *

 

_"The children fastened their eye upon their bit of candle and watched it melt slowly and pitilessly away, saw the half inch of wick stand alone at last, saw the feeble flame rise and fall, climb the thin tower of smoke, linger at its top a moment, and then..."_

Carol stops reading because Ryan Samuels has finally left the library. I look at Luke. On cue, he says, "Ma'am, should I take watch now?"

"Yes, Luke, you do that."

He goes. Carol takes out a large, heavy, rectangular box, opens it.

"Today, we are talking about knives," she says. I stretch my neck to get a better view of the array of sharp blades inside. "How to use them. How to be safe with them. And how they could save your life—"

"Ma'am, may I be dismissed?" Patrick never interrupts anyone, except me. He's pale and sweaty and tired-looking.

"What is it?" Carol takes the question from my mouth.

Patrick shakes his head. He gulps, "I'm not feeling very well."

"Sometimes you're gonna have to fight through it," she says. "What if you wind up out there alone? Will you just give up 'cause you're feeling bad?"

"No, it's just. I—I don't want to yack on somebody."

A few kids shuffle out of the firing-zone, which I find a little funny. Pat’s not sick a lot. Usually it’s me yacking all over the place or taking days off sick. I know him needing to leave is _him needing to leave_.

Carol knows it too.

“Go...”

"Pat..." I whisper, missing his wrist when I reach out to it. He doesn’t hear me. I watch the library door swing shut, and hear Carol continue teaching, and then _...and then..._ something catches my eye behind the bookshelf, shuffling, and I double take.

Carl Grimes is looking directly at me through the shelf.

It's like getting electrocuted. I’m jostled back into my beanbag, through the floorboards, bulldozed into the earth’s core, and with one disappointed sigh, Carl emerges from his hiding spot. I hear his soul-sound, the ocean, smashing and crashing in waves. Books are thrown from shelves. Pages and pages spin and tear like coral in a typhoon, and I’m washed up in the riptide.

Carol sees him too. "Please... don't tell your father."

He's madder than I've ever seen him. So mad I can see the steam and the embers, spraying and sparkling away from the ends of his hair and fingertips, flittering across the floor at my knees. I get singed. Then he turns on his heel and leaves the library. His thoughts stay in the room, turning the air black and thick. I could cut through it with one of Carol's knives.

I look at the floor because the floor doesn't hurt to look at right now. I know I should go after him. I know Carol thinks so too, because when I look at her she gestures me to go...

* * *

 

Half way running back to C block, I stumble right into Carl with a bash and a grunt. He wraps his arms around me and I wrap mine around him and hold on and on and we bobble up through the ceiling through the roof and through the sky and through the atmosphere into outer space, and we aren't mad at each other we're just okay and far away from everything... only that doesn't happen.

He yells at me.

“What the hell, Oliver! Watch where you’re going!”

I right myself, panting. Carl leans against the corridor wall, arms crossed, eyes narrowed and angry. I rush forward and cover them with my fingers.

“Hey—Oliver...” He swats my hands down. “Stop that,” he hisses, and goes quiet for a second. He watches the floor. “I wasn’t sure you’d come after me, but, then I felt dumb because I knew Carol would make you anyway, so, I waited instead—”

"I'm sorry," I say over him, breathless.

Carl looks at me, his face flat. “You know that’s the first thing you’ve said to me all day.” Sometimes he keeps score. I’m getting more narrowed blue eyes and gritted teeth because I haven’t said anything else yet.

Finally, he loses patience and walks away. I watch him, and I’m growing, filling up the corridor like a plug. "We couldn't tell you!"

Carl turns. He storms back towards me. "Of course _they_ couldn't!” he argues. “But you! _You!_ Of all people, _you_ lied to me! You _lied!_ "

My shoulders come down and I shrink to normal size again. Carl too, and all quiet and soft, he whispers, “You’re meant to be my best friend.”

"I didn’t lie,” I say. “I just... couldn’t tell you.”

Carl’s face flushes angrily.

“I made a promise!” I say, grabbing his hand before he turns away. “Sometimes you keep secrets to protect people. Sometimes you don’t say things because you shouldn’t. _You_ _know that._ " I stop. We aren’t supposed to talk about this. But it seems to be the right thing to say because Carl nods and lets it go. He leans back against the wall, gently twisting his hand and slipping our fingers together, so I join him, leaning back against the cement beside him, shoulder-to-shoulder and we stay like that, holding hands like last night, and we let the world feel like it's falling back into place again except we’re both standing in a minefield. It’s not new, the minefield, I’ve just never risked death by attempting to step through it, except sometimes, like last night, like now, when the mines are switched off, when we're distracted or worked up after yelling or being frightened, or it’s just very very quiet and we know the world is on pause for a while.

He squeezes my hand, says, “I know,” and I explode, and it’s so good I _die_ , only I just stare at the wall ahead of us, not saying anything. And then a group of fence cleaners cross the hallway down from us and we let go.

"Guess you’ll tell your Dad about storytime," I say to the floor. Carl's eyes are studying me. I can feel it without looking. I want to look though. I want to look up and look back and keep on looking but he's still looking at me and looking back would set off another explosion.

"I'm gonna go find him," he says finally, "you should go check on your brother. He didn't look so good."

I watch him leave, and he's long gone by the time I say, "Yeah..."

* * *

 

Back in my cell, I'm wondering around, tidying up.

**_You need your inhaler._ **

"I'll wait," I tell myself. "I don't need it yet."

"Dude," Patrick complains. "Shush."

"Oh. Sorry."

Patrick's in my bunk; said he couldn't make it up to his own.

“Didn’t mean to wake you,” I say.

He groans.

I take off my beanie and drop it on my bedside table, sighing.

"Feeling any better?" I add.

He opens one eye, frowning, sweating. "I'm fine."

"You look terrible."

This makes him huff.

“Want me to go get Dr. S?"

"No, dude, I'm fine."

I reach out to his forehead but he dodges me.

"It's just a stomach bug. I don't need a doctor."

I sigh. Patrick's too proud for his own good sometimes.

"Fine,” I say, “but I'm getting you something to cool you down." I grab one from the sink, wet it under the tap, ring it out... then throw it at his face. “Just because I offered doesn't mean I'll do it for you.”

He flips me the bird and presses the rag over his forehead. For a minute, I take a seat on the floor next to him with my legs crossed, tapping my knees.

"Carl saw us at storytime," I find myself saying. "He was watching just as you left."

Patrick's eyebrows raise.

"He's mad," I sigh, "at me mostly. Will be for a while if I know him at all. He's telling Rick now."

"Doesn't surprise me," Pat says. He waits a bit before going on. "When I got here, he still had his gun. He didn't even talk to me. Or the others. We'd hang out in C block sometimes but we didn't do anything together. I'd sit and mess with Lego and he'd be cleaning his gun."

I imagine that in my head and smirk. Patrick smirks my smirk, _our_ smirk, rolling his eyes. He takes a breath until he coughs on it.

"When Rick took his gun, he took mine, too.”

“Wasn’t that thing empty?”

“Yeah.” Pat only kept it around just in case we needed to pretend we were a threat. “Few weeks before you turned up, Carl started hanging out with me more, said his Dad wanted him to. I went with it. I liked it. We played soccer and read and stuff, you know? It was like I had a brother again."

"Yeah," I murmur. And then I realise my brother is crying. "Er... Pat?"

He grimaces, then sort of yells at me. "Look, dude, I'm sorry, okay?"

"What? Why?"

"For what happened, at the store. I left you."

All of a sudden my voice is sucked out of me like a vacuum.

"I'm sorry," he says again, wiping his face, "you were out there alone, for months. I didn't tell anyone about you. I just, couldn't. When Mom and Dad—"

"Stop."

He looks at me.

“Sorry,” I say. “I just... don’t wanna talk about them.”

"Okay, okay,” he says. “It’s just us. I lost everything. And then I lost you. And it was my fault. You were alone and it was my fault. And you can hate me for it if you want to."

"Pat," I say, curt. " _Stop._ I forgive you." It only occurs to me now that I've never said this to him, that it's even true. I've never blamed Patrick for what happened. Not even when I hit him. I was just in shock. I only hated the circumstance, not my brother. "So shut the hell up and _vai a dormire, si?_ "

"Yeah,” he says. “ _Ti amo, fratello_."

I get all dumb and grumbly then. He hasn’t called me brother in a long time, let alone told me that he loves me. A small part of me knows I should say it back, and I do, in my head, but outside my head I just say, “Bite me, _stronzo_."

And just like that, we crack up like we own the same brain, and I get that feeling like I have all my life, only I've been missing it lately, a little, because the feeling I get is the feeling like I've got a big brother because I do. He's right here in front of me, with the same blood and surname and underbite.

Patrick simmers out into quiet, and then he is asleep.

* * *

 

Later when I'm on my way back from the supply closet, book in my hand, I find Carl sitting on the common room bench. I smile and sit next to him when he pats the table-top beside me. I realise that he's probably still mad at me, so I stop smiling.

"Did you tell?"

Carl shakes his head. "Couldn't. He ran into trouble outside—some lady."

"Is he okay?"

"Don’t know. He's talking to Hershel about it." There's this thing Carl does with his mouth when he's worried. His lips twitch. "Wanna read?"

"Pat still feels like shit. I don't think he'd appreciate company."

“Aren’t you company?”

“Yeah, but I’m his brother.”

Carl seems to respect that.

"Tell him get better soon."

I smile a little. It seems he hasn't held a grudge, but I know enough not to take advantage of this, even though I want to push my hands under his and dance a waltz around the common room with him. Instead, I slip off of the bench to leave, only Carl stops me.

"Oliver..." He stops. Fidgeting, he watches my mouth. I wonder if I have a pimple or something.

Allison crosses the common room and says, “Hey,” to us as she passes, and suddenly Carl’s standing up. I startle because he slaps my shoulder and walks away.

"Erm..." I say, walking after him. "Aren't you going to... I don’t know, finish your sentence?"

He stops and looks at me. "I just think you're cool and I don't hate you," he says.

There’s a frown and it grows inside out of me only when it comes out it’s a grin. A massive grin. I fill the whole common room with it.

"Okay..." I reply, because _ooooookaaaay..._

"Yeah."

I laugh.

He does, too.

And then I get a ball of energy in my chest like electricity. Because he tugs my sleeve and let me kiss his forehead and — and we sit and read comics and sometimes we hold hands and sometimes too I wake up and he’s just watching me, except watching someone is probably perfectly guyish, and we sit and we read comics because we are guy friends who do guy things together, like build and read and say _dude_ and _bro_ and _man_ at the right points during conversation, like guy friends do.

_Guy friends._

I'm shrinking into myself, taking notes with my _Guy_ -pen, all my _Guy_ -barriers of _Guy_ ness up to make me more _Guy_ , and again, _Guy_ -Master-Carl slaps my shoulder so I grunt _Guy_ ly, and then he's turning on his heel and marching from D block.

* * *

 

Later, in bed, I don't notice that I fall asleep until my flash light —which is still turned on— falls from my mouth and clatters loudly to the floor. My book is open, pages bent and digging into my cheek. Someone’s coughing. I read the clock down on my radio. _4:44AM_.

"Pat?"

More coughing, only he's out of bed now.

"Pat." He tells me to go back to bed through his coughs. I groan into my/his pillow. "W-what's wrong with you?"

"I'm fine..." Another cough. "Go... Go back to bed, I just gotta... Gotta cool down."

I frown, but do as he says, tired and dazed and lazy. I hear bare feet slapping against the cold floor all the way through the cell block, and then I fall asleep.

_On my last night on Earth, I won't look to the sky_   
_Just breathe in the air and blink in the light_   
_On my last night on Earth, I'll pay a high price_   
_to have no regrets and be done with my life..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damn...
> 
> Happy reading.


	6. Season 4 ~ Infected, Part 1: Patrick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver's gotta find his brother.

I wake up because I fall out of Patrick’s bed. The ground is hard and cold when I hit it, butt first, and I do well not to make any noise. To help recuperate, I sit in my bed and put my radio on, quietly, and listen to a CD I found.

_‘Sleep now under my skin_   
_make sure you try to_   
_conjure the wind_   
_and ease my mind.’_

The time on my radio ticks over to 6:00AM, and I figure this is as good a time as any for that chocolate bar, but it’s not in my beanie, so I look around. The empty wrapper is poking out under my pillow. He stole it. My brother _stole_ my chocolate.

I’m about to growl his name, but then I realise I am sitting in my bed—my bed that Patrick slept in last night. And Patrick’s not here.

 **_Where’d he go?_ ** _  
It’s an hour before we need to wake up._

I get this feeling like I’m not really interested in where he is. I can always ask him later. But I’m awake, so I figure I can make myself useful somewhere, so I pull on my beanie and shoes, get up, and go to find Carl heading for the gardens, thinking that my sweet-tooth is starving. Pat’s dead the next time I see him.

The gardens and farm smell of paprika and coriander and animals. Carl and Rick aren’t here yet, but Michonne is; grooming an untethered Flame.

"Oliver, it’s good to see you settled in."

I shrug and look at her curiously. I don’t know Michonne well, since this is the first I’ve seen of her since she left, which was only a few days after she brought me here, but I still like her a lot.

“You on garden duty?”

I shake my head. “Kitchen.”

“You're up early.”

I shrug.

"I'm headed out," she says, filling my quiet. I must suddenly look disappointed because she says, "I’ll come back soon." She notices me hovering, and smiles. “Wanna help?”

I look at Flame. All one million blazing chestnut pounds of her. She pushes Michonne's arm with her muzzle. Michonne scratches her shoulder affectionately, whispering something soft into her tall bright orange ear. I realise I should nod, so I do, and I step into the paddock when asked.

Flame greets me and I grow five feet pushing myself against the fence away from her, thinking: _Shitshitshitshit!_

"She won't eat you."

“Are... Are you sure?” Flame is licking and chamming her mouth, rocking her head up and down. “She looks like she’s going to eat me.”

Michonne laughs. “She's a herbivore."

This is comforting.

"Here." Michonne is running her hands all the way along Flame’s back and shoulders until she's stood right beside me. "Hold your hand out." Timidly, I do. Flame watches, one ear facing Michonne and the other facing me. "Ease up."

I ease up.

"Horses can tell when you're afraid."

I'm a little sort of a bit very afraid.

"Ease up..."

Oh, right, yes, I do that... again.

Then this amazing thing happens because Flame eases up, too, stuffing a long ginger muzzle into my palm. Her mouth grabs my fingertips, no teeth, but I still yank my hand back, and then she's tugging at my pockets. Her top lip wiggles against my hip, and I startle and laugh.

"You got anythin' for her?"

I fish into the pocket Flame's so interested in. It’s an almost empty Graham cracker packet.

"Does she like crumbs?" I ask.

"Ask her."

I grin. Flame pulls the plastic out of my hand and I have to grab it back before she eats it. I feed her the contents while Michonne starts on cleaning the paddock.

"Yeah," I whisper. "She likes them." When she’s eaten everything, I wipe slobber from my hand and put the empty packet back in my pocket. I've never really been around horses before, but I decide in this moment that they’re just like lame zebra, and that I like them.

"I'll teach you to ride, if you want?" Michonne says, tacking up. I help her stock the saddlebags and nod gratefully. Flame stretches her neck when I rub the right spot hard enough. Michonne hands me her reins. "Here, lead her."

We leave the paddock. I'm not really leading Flame, rather walking by her side. Just as we make it to the driveway, Carl and Rick show up, heading down to the garden. I watch them through Flame's mane as not to get caught staring, only the sun has caught inside the horse’s hair, tangled in it, so real life _flames_ dance around them both, like a sketch Carl would draw.

He could be a painting, I think. And a good book, I think. Or a song, I think. All that but the kind that makes you get that feeling like when you cry and laugh at the same time, I think. I think Carl is art. Yeah. A masterpiece. _I think I think I think._

I remember to stop thinking so much when I trip over Flame’s hoof.

"Mornin'!" Rick calls.

Michonne takes Flame's reins for me, bringing her to stop. I walk around them. Carl meets me, not noticing how busy I am scrambling up enough of my _Guy_ -notes from last night to successfully saunter up to him _Guy_ ly and give him a big, muscly, _Guy_ fist-bump. Grizzly bear strength. It jostles him. I’m doing good. Ten out of ten on the _Guy_ -scale.

"You're up early," he says.

I shrug. _Yeah, yeah, I knoow._

“Come to see Michonne go, too?”

I point at him. I came to see him. And it's possible he blushes at this. It's also possible I just flew up into the sun, Icarus style — I roll my eyes to scoop up some of the _Guy_ that’d slipped.

_Guy-Guy-Guy-Guy._

He's in a good mood because he slings an arm over my shoulder and rubs his nose in my neck. I shove him off like a total _Guy_ , yes? Only, maybe he's feeling in an especially good mood today, or maybe it’s just early, because then Carl grabs me, like he’s trying to tackle me, like it’s all for show, like too much Guy is just the right amount of Guy for it to be ironic enough, and I go with it and fight back and laugh and a whole minefield explodes from our eyeballs all the way across Georgia.

I get this feeling like we’re all just misplacing a lot of _'a'_ s.

“Alright, boys, settle down,” Rick says.

I'm laughing, thinking about guys with an _'a'_ instead of a _'u'_ and I can't stop laughing. Carl, too. He puts my beanie right and brushes my fringe to sit right, all sweet and gentle and  isn’t it odd how much you can laugh when you're also knocked-out cold?

"Careful out there," Rick tells Michonne, oblivious to the universe caving in.

"Always am," she replies. "Any requests? Books? Comics?" She's talking to us now. "Some stale M&M's?"

I nod to her. I _crave_ chocolate, especially now after what Patrick did to me. Chocolate makes the world go around; can fix anything, like thieving brothers and caving universes and boys who gentle and sweet and make you mix up letters u and a too much. I believe in chocolate like I should probably believe in God.

Not Carl though.

"You're the ones who like stale M&M's," he says.

"Then I'll definitely be looking for some,” Michonne, “I'll look for some stuff you like, too, Carl."

He waves. I check for any undetonated mines, but I don't see any, so I judge it a safe enough area to smile at him. He smiles back.

I'm burning alive and I'm okay with it.

"Hey, why don't you wear your hat anymore?" Michonne asks.

"It's not a farming hat," Carl answers. I’ve never seen him wear a hat. Not even my hat. "See you soon?"

"Pretty soon."

The way Carl looks at her makes me think, for a second, that he's forgotten he's in a field with three other people, because he sucks in a deep breath and his chest blows up all big and anxious. I look away because I get all anxious too. I keep walking, matching Flame's front hooves, which is hard because she has very large steps—I hold onto her withers to keep up.

"What hat?"

The question was in my head for so long it sort of just came out. We're at the gate already. I'm eyeing up levers and trying to remember which ones to yank on.

"He's got a deputy’s hat," Michonne explains, climbing into Flame's saddle. "Rick’s old one. Hasn't he ever shown you?"

I shake my head. I try imagining Carl wearing it. I can't. My imagination is on temporary retreat after all the mine detonations today.

I pull open the inner fence.

"Thanks, Oliver."

I shut it behind her, then start on opening the outer gate.

"Wolverine," I blurt, grunting. "That's his favourite. Or more Science Dog."

"Got it. See you soon."

She and Flame trot away, and I whisper, "Pretty soon," as I watch them, and then Rick is here, taking the levers for me and telling me he's got this, so I walk back along the driveway to the garden. Carl's watching the piglets. I stand outside of the paddock. Violet’s gone and I don’t know why and the look on my face must tell that to Carl because he says, "Violet died last night. We don't know why."

He leaves the paddock and meets me outside, hanging his bucket on the gate post as he exits. We watch the orphan piglets, wriggling and squealing.

“They can’t survive without their mother. Not this young,” he explains. He looks sad. I wonder if it’s because of the pigs. He doesn’t seem like the kind of boy to get sad over pigs. Except he does, I guess. He holds the fence and leans into it, then leans into me—this tiny bit; edge of shoulder against edge of shoulder. I want to write with the hair along his shoulders, but I don't do that because that's not what _Guy_ friends do.

Instead, I ask, “What’s wrong?”

Carl sighs.

“Dad won’t give me my gun back,” he says, “and he won’t let me help with the walkers, and he thinks he knows things but he doesn’t know...”

He burns himself out like an old match.

I watch him. I want to say something, but I can’t think of anything, so instead I reach out to take his hand, then stop and take it back.

 _Guy_ friends don’t hold hands.

 _Guy_ friends don’t even think about it.

Carl's dipping his head and thumbing at the fence post, nodding like I’ve said something. "I gotta get on with chores." I wonder if he wants me to leave, except he keeps talking: “Come with me.”

We wander into the tall bean stalks, far enough in that it’s hard to see the prison unless we jump. The fence sways noisily behind our backs. I think of that night again. That night we don’t talk about. And then Carl stops and turns to me. He looks at me and looks at me and I get this feeling like I know what he wants to talk about.

My mouth goes dry.

"Oliver?"

He has my full attention, but he says nothing else. He shifts his weight on his hips, and with his fingers, beats a jittery rhythm into one bean pod.

I decide on the spot to mess with him.

"Look, man,” I say, “as much as I like staring at you too, I'm kind of still waiting for you to actually say something."

It amazes me the shit that comes out of my mouth when I'm trying to _Guy._

"Okay," he says, like he's just thrown the starting flag down for a race. "It's just that I've been thinking a lot lately..."

**_Off to a good start._ **

"...about a lot of things..."

**_A little rough around the first corner._ **

"Here, think of it this way. What’s something you're not supposed to think about, but something you think about anyway, just because you really... really like to."

**_Doing good, man. Keep going..._ **

"But, uh, well, now that I'm trying to explain this to you, I feel like I'm telling a secret to a secret... I mean... I mean..."

**_Uh-oh. He's in trouble._ **

"I just... I—I... Never mind."

**_Crash._ **

I watch him, astounded, thinking that we might really just be on the same page, thinking I’m going to show him again like I did the first time only this time it’ll be real, and it’ll count, and another mine is about to blow — _kapow_ — and then there’s a loud bang. The next happens so close after that it’s hard to have time to react. And then lots of things happen at once. The gunfire doesn't stop. I hear Lizzie and Mika up in the courtyard—"Help! Help! Please, come quick!" And then Rick is here, flying from the pig pen and grabbing mine and Carl’s collars, saying, “Stay close.”

“Cell blocks?” Maggie calls down.

“I don’t know,” Rick yells. He turns to us. “Get in the tower with Maggie.”

“My brother,” I say, and saying it scares me.

“Don’t argue,” Rick cuts me off. “Go!”

I have Carl’s shoulder, so I let go of it. I’m hearing things like, “Walkers in D!” and “What about C?” and “It’s clear. We locked the gates to the tombs. Hershel’s on guard.” “It ain’t a breach.” “We followed the plan.”

And then Carl is yanking my collar... away from the tower.

“Michonne...”

I break away from him.

_I gotta go. I gotta go to D._

“Oliver...” He’s out of breath. Running out of time. We both are. I have this feeling in my chest like the sky is losing its sun. I have to go. “Okay,” Carl hears me. “Okay, but be careful.”

And then he’s leaving and I am, too. I rocket through the courtyard. Carol yells at me. Mika and Lizzie cry. Then I’m crashing through the heavy D block doors and sprinting down the corridor. I hear the screaming before I see the dim glow of the common room. When I get there, it’s chaos. There’s blood. Walker faces are dotted among living.

"Oliver!" Rick yells, urging people out of the block. "Go! Dammit, go!"

I ignore him, pelting to my cell. Patrick's not inside so I leave quickly. A walker collapses to my feet, snapping at my shoes. It takes six blows for fresh skull to cave in under my shoe. Brain matter explodes over the cement. It's Teddy. And then Luke is screaming because another walker, Kyle, is grabbing his ankle and yanking. I kick Kyle in the face. Luke is crying and I pull him by the collar to his feet, except Kyle hasn't stopped.

“Luke, kick!” I yell. Then a green bolt punctures Kyle's eyeball and I stagger back onto the floor. Luke lands on my chest. It hurts. I grab him and I pull him back as hard as I can just as someone on the second floor throws themselves over the banister, landing in a heap. They clamber away, and I wonder if I’m dying, like it’s that night months and months ago when I was alone and hiding and I had to listen to somebody scream and scream their life away...

Daryl is shouting at me.

"Get back!"

I watch him throw Luke over his shoulder and lug him to Karen’s cell. I expect him to pull me in, too, and I’m going to yell at him not to, but he just hands me a hunting knife from his belt and says, "Go, boy."

And, boy, I go.

Lacey is attacking Allison—they live next door to me. I sink my knife through Lacey's temple. Her corpse falls limp at Allison's side. I hold my hand out, pull her to stand, and by the time she’s sobbed her, “Thank you," I'm already gone. Screams surround me. I take out walker after walker. Oliver from D block leaves, stands on the side-lines and waits for it all to be over. Oliver the survivor is here now. Coming back. Taking over. Then, all at once a million years and dead bodies later, the ground floor is still and quiet. I find Patrick’s glasses. They’re alone on the shower room floor, bloody and draining along the tiles. I leave without touching them, not breathing. People are crying. Someone is bitten and being held by a loved one, and I just stand here, knife in hand and out of breath.

There’s music.

It’s coming from my cell; my radio, left on...

_‘Somebody call out to your brother.  
He’s calling out your name._

_Ooh ooh ooh..._

_Hiding under the covers,  
with no one else to blame._

_Ooh ooh ooh..._

_You couldn’t help out your own neighbour._  
_You couldn’t tell it to his face._  
 _You were fucked up by the blame.’_

I switch it off. I can’t feel my fingers.

Rick is here then, in my cell. He puts his hands on my shoulders and looks at me closely, saying my name, only I don't hear it for a few times.

"...Oliver, y’alright?"

I nod, breathless. I need my inhaler. I don’t feel good. I want my brother.

Rick leaves my cell. "Are we clear down here?" he yells up at everyone. "Are we safe?!"

"Yeah!" Sasha answers from somewhere. "Yeah!"

“Oliver,” Rick tells me, “stay close.”

I do, and upstairs on the catwalk, Glenn, Daryl, Rick and I take every cell one at a time. One woman, Jenny, is bit and dead. Daryl puts a bolt through her forehead. Another man a little further down, Liam, has his stomach spilled out over the railing. Rick takes care of him. I want to call out, but my mouth won’t open. Instead I keep looking. This cell is clear. This cell is bloody. The next, empty. I pull back the next cell’s curtain, hear a growl, see the lunge, and leap back before it can get me. My hands come back, handle of knife gripped tight, but I stop.

_funny..._

When you see someone you know, who always wears a certain type of clothing accessory; a hat or scarf or a pair of glasses, you imagine them always wearing that item, as if it isn't an item of clothing at all but an actual _part_ of them, like an arm or a leg. Always there. So, when you see them without that scarf or without that hat or without that pair of glasses... it takes you a moment to recognise them again.

I've never thought about it like this before. I’ve never had to. And actually, it isn't all that funny. I recognise the walker that isn't wearing his glasses anymore. Patrick. My brother. A walker. Blood pours from his eyes and nose and mouth and ears. He shrieks, snaps his teeth, spits blood, and tries to tear me apart.

I can't say his name or speak.

I can't even scream.

Instead, a mixture of whimpers and grunts leave me as I stumble backwards. Some big angry bubble of disbelief and loss explodes in my chest, and I lose all sense of how to stop this, and then, right before my eyes, a bolt from Daryl's crossbow splits through my brother's skull.

In one temple, out the other.

Everything slows, and I don't stop staring while Pat hits the catwalk with a hard _clank_ at my feet, and then silence. It’s that silence I’ve always dreamed of. Absolute silence. The kind of silence so quiet you can hear your own heartbeat. It’s terrible.

I'm not sure what happens next. I think I try to grab him, hold around his shoulders and pull him into me and ask him to get up, but someone grabs me and pulls me away from him and I am screaming and cursing and thrashing and collapsing. Blood oozes from the end of the arrow bolt. Cries wrack my whole body. My brother's dead.

My brother is dead.

_Don’t do that.  
You can’t leave me again, man._

Someone puts their hand on my shoulder. I flinch but they try to pull me to stand anyway. I curse at them. Rick slips anther hand under my arm and pulls gently. Again, I flinch and shove him. He tries again, and he’s stronger than me, so as I scratch and punch but he's already forced me to my feet. Tears pour down my cheeks. I stagger away from them all, coughing and crying and whimpering. I’m lost. I’m dropped in a hole and buried alive. I can't escape. I’m here forever now.

It takes me a while to realise where I am again. I touch the catwalk railing, grip it, trembling. There's a blood splatter in the gap between my hands so I scrunch up my face and step back. Rick's hand touches my shoulder blade and I let that happen. I face him. I don’t hear what he says but I nod anyway. _Help me,_ I say to him, but he doesn’t hear me. I don’t even hear me. _Help me, please._ Rick is talking to me. My tears won’t stop. I haven't taken my inhaler. I cough and cough and don’t hear it.

This has never happened. I’ve never not heard the outside. It’s always the outside not hearing me.

_I don’t understand._

_What’s happening to me?_

_Help me. Please._

Rick holds me. He holds me and I hear him clear as day when he whispers, “I’m here. I’m here.”

_Thank you._

I don't just feel like the sky is losing its sun anymore. It's losing its stars and its moon, too. It's just a blank space. I am.

Rick lets go of me.

"Take your inhaler, Oliver. You're not sounding too good."

I do. Rick walks away. It's just Glenn and I. Patrick's body lays in the cell doorway beside us. I take my inhaler again.

"What happened to him?" Daryl asks.

Glenn sighs, shaking his head and rubbing his mouth. "I don't know..."

Blood's still streaking in odd wet angles down my brother's face, oozing from his eyes and ears and nose and mouth. I do when things get too much in my head. I frown.

"See any bites?" Daryl asks. "Didn't see any."

Glenn is crouched by Patrick's side. I'm about to step closer, too, but I start crying again so Glenn tells me to take it easy, so I step back and sit at Daryl's feet—something he looks a little disgruntled by.

After checking him over, Glenn sets Patrick down again and says, "He wasn't bitten."

I have this feeling in my stomach and chest and skin like I want to die. Glenn stands up and talks with the others, who are all now standing outside another cell, another dead body inside. I watch the small view of their backs and shoulders from the catwalk and listen to their conversation...

"No bites," Rick says. "No wounds."

"Same for Patrick," Glenn explains. "Guys, I think he jus' died."

"Horribly, too," Caleb replies. "Pleurisy, aspiration."

"Choked to death on his own blood," Hershel says, "caused those trails down his face."

"I've seen them before," Rick says, "on a walker outside the fences."

"Saw them on Patrick, too," Daryl grumbles.

"Yeah, they're from the internal lung pressure building up," Caleb explains. "Like if you shake a soda can and pop the top. Only, imagine your eyes, ears, nose and throat... are the top."

My chin shakes. Grief throws away more and more stars in my sky, knocking them right out of my universe. In my head, I watch Patrick choking and dying all alone. And me? Asleep. I feel like I've just been kicked in the back of the knees. I sit on the floor, else I’ll collapse.

This is my fault.

Patrick was dying yesterday.

And I just slept while he choked on his own blood.

"Doctor. S," Daryl says, soft and coarse. "That's his brother you're talking about."

"Sorry, Oliver," Caleb apologises.

I keep my eyes shut. I want to sink away.

"So, it's a sickness – from the walkers?" Bob asks.

"Uh, no, these things happened before they were around," Caleb explains, clearing his throat. "Could be Pneumococcal. Most likely an aggressive flu strain."

"Someone locked him in just in time."

"Nah, man,” Daryl says, “Charlie used to sleep walk, locked himself in—Hell, he was just eatin' barbecue yesterday. How could somebody die in a day jus' from a cold?"

"I had a sick pig," Rick says. "Died quick. Saw a sick boar in the woods."

"Pigs and birds," Hershel says. "That's how these things spread in the past. We need to do something about those hogs."

"Maybe we got lucky," Caleb tries. "Maybe these two cases are it."

"I haven't seen anybody be lucky in a long time," Bob says. "Bugs like to run through close quarters—doesn't get any closer than this."

"All of us in here," Hershel informs everyone, "we've all been exposed."

I think of that song from earlier. I think of how it ends...

 _You cower in the corner._  
 _Confide in your father._  
 _Let it break your day._  
_Let it out and say._

_Wait there,_   
_pull yourself out of this state dear._   
_Acknowledge you were a fake here,_   
_from there on you might just grow._

_Oh oh oh..._

_Somebody call out to your brother.  
He’s calling out your name._

_Ooh ooh ooh..._

_Hiding under the covers,  
with no one else to blame._

_Ooh ooh ooh..._

_Oh, you couldn’t help out your own neighbour._   
_You couldn’t tell it to his face._   
_You were fucked up by the blame._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy reading.


	7. Season 4 ~ Infected, Part 2: A Practicing Atheist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one's in Carl's perspective.

Maggie and I get Michonne back into the prison. She fell and hurt her ankle. I had to shoot a walker to save her. I know I shouldn't have used a gun, but I had to. Dad's not going to be happy. I know it like I know I need air to breathe. I feel sick. I feel like this is only the first bad thing that's going to happen in a long line of bad things to come. This is the start, isn't it?

Dad comes hurrying around the corner. His face is splattered in red and he looks pale. I rush over to him. "Hey. You might wanna stay back, Carl."

I hug him, and he hugs me, holding tight.

"Dad, I'm sorry," I sob. "I didn't see you come out."

"It's okay, I'm here." He rocks me in his arms and I let him. "I'm fine. Now back away."

I do. I stand there and I say, "I had to use one of the guns by the gate — I swear, I didn't want to..." and I brace for the scolding, watch it bubble up from his gut to his throat, but he's interrupted.

"I was comin' back," Michonne says. "I fell. They came out and helped me."

He asks her, "Y'alright?"

Michonne nods.

"What happened in there?" Maggie asks.

A woman, Kimberly, leaves D block, holding her three-year-old son. Dead. I look back to Dad. He looks devastated. _Don't,_ I think. _Please, don't..._

"Patrick got sick last night," he says. "Some kind of flu, it moves fast. We think he died and attacked the cell block."

All at once, I think I'll collapse and burst into tears.

"Where... Where's Oliver?" His name’s difficult on my throat. My knees go weak. "Where... Where is he?"

"C block," Dad tells me, and I drown. "He's alright. But – Carl, he's mourning. Give him space.” Dad sighs. “Look, I know Patrick was your friend, and I'm sorry. He was a good kid. We lost a lot of good people."

I nod. It’s hard to think right.

"Glenn and your Dad are okay,” Dad tells Maggie. “But they...they were in D block. You shouldn't get too close to anyone that mighta been exposed."

"Wasn't Oliver exposed?" I ask.

"He's washing. Just keep Judith away. To be safe. At least for a little while."

I nod and return to Michonne.

"Carl," Dad asks, "all of you."

* * *

 

In C block, Beth is tending to Michonne’s ankle upstairs. Judith’s up there, too. On the way back from the bathroom, I pass the shower room. I can’t hear the shower anymore, but I can hear him crying.

I lean in. The shower room is open, with a few hand-rigged, tarp curtains for cubicles. I can see him sitting on the floor through the mist, looking totally devastating and terrible. “Oliver?”

He sniffs and grabs for towels.

"It... it's just me," I say, and then he says my name so I meet him at his cubicle, pulling back the curtain when he tells me I can.

"Carl," he sobs into his hands, "he's dead."

His old clothes are gone and there's instead a clean set of my clothes folded up on the shelf opposite him. I grab them and hold them out.

“Sorry,” he whispers, “just... give me a minute. I'm... not really working right now.” It's difficult to understand him. He’s crying so hard. "I can't... I can't do anything."

I don't know how to deal with crying people.

"Do you want my help?" I ask, and he just shuts his eyes, so I crouch in front of him. He’s all curled up like a fist. I realise it isn’t so much that he can’t do things it’s just that it takes him a very long time. Shirt first. Easy. Underwear. He does that. Shorts. Easy, too. Just slow and a little soggy. It’s sad seeing him without his beanie.

"Sorry." He hasn't gone more than a few minutes without saying that yet.

"It's okay," I say, every time. I sit with him and I hold him and I rock him in my arms because that’s what my dad did to me and it made me feel better. "It’s all shit," I add. It’s all I can think to say, and it must help because Oliver puts his head on my shoulder and sighs. I've never cussed in front of him before. In front of anyone.

"It's my fault," he whispers, eyes down and away. "It's my fault."

"What?"

There's this feeling I get sometimes when I talk to Oliver. I'll be breathless and anxious and I won't know what to do or say to him. It's like that now, only in a new way. A bad way.

"I should've done something." Oliver sniffs. It's still hard to understand him. "I should have done something. He left our cell last night. He was already choking, and I didn’t do anything."

"Stop," I try.

He's clutching around his middle, all crumpled up and shaking. He cries and cries and I hold him again. He lets me kiss his forehead. It’s warm and his hair is damp, and his crying goes away when I pull away, touching our foreheads.

"You didn’t have to do that," he whispers.

"I..." I wanted to. Doesn't he realise that? I thought that's why he let me do it. "It's okay," I say, sinking. "I don't mind."

"You don't."

I don't say anything because it didn’t sound like a question.

Oliver sighs and leans into my shoulder.

“Is this the first time?” I ask.

“What?”

“The first time you lost someone to it?”

“No,” he whispers. “My parents were the first. Pat and I... We didn’t put them down. They’re still in their bedroom. We were so scared and sad. We didn’t know what else to do except try to get used to it. But...”

“But you never really could,” I add for him. “I know that feeling. It sticks. Even if you learn to ignore it. People even tell you to. But they’re wrong.” I watch him. I have to wipe my face. “You can’t forget that feeling... It’s too easy to lose.”

A tear runs down his cheek as well and I wipe it for him, too. He frowns. Frowns and frowns and frowns. Sometimes Oliver frowns so much it's hard to tell what they mean. This frown doesn't seem angry. Not at me at least. This frown is something else. I can’t tell what he’s thinking though. I know what I’m thinking, though. I’m thinking this is the moment I should tell him. About my mom. About Dale. About what I did to that boy with the beanie in the woods. Jesus, against all that, telling him about him isn't even the hardest thing. Everyone has secrets. I know this. But it doesn't make sharing them any easier.

Then, suddenly, somewhere in the middle of me thinking all this, Oliver puts his hands against my face and pulls me to him, and he decides to kiss me, and it doesn’t feel much different to all the other kisses before, except for the placing — he’s never kissed my mouth before. As he pulls away, I wonder if this is just another thing we do now. I wonder if this could be what friends do, if they're just _that_ close, kiss each other without it really meaning anything, in a way it doesn’t count, like this.

“Sorry,” he says again.

I just shake my head, watching him.

"It’s okay. You're not yourself right now." I stand up, stuffing my pockets. I’m shaking. "You're still in shock. Tired. Come on. You can sleep in my cell."

 

* * *

 

Oliver’s been resting for a couple hours. I'm in the common room so I don’t wake him, a few planks of wood and a toolbox laid out in front of me, building a cross. Carol comes in just as I finish.

I hold up the cross. “D’you know if Patrick was a Catholic?”

She leans against the bench and tells me, “He said he was a practicing atheist.”

I sigh, figuring I should have known that while I use a hammer to snap the cross apart. I start putting the pieces in a pile to get rid of.

"Did you tell your dad what you saw in the library yesterday?" I’m asked.

"Nope."

"Will you tell him?"

I don’t answer. Don't even look at her.

"I have to keep teaching them to survive. You know that."

I do, but I don’t tell her that. "Did you tell their parents?"

"No."

I look at her. "Are you gonna tell'm?"

The pause is thin and stale.

"If I do," Carol says, "maybe after this they'll understand, but maybe they won't. But I don't wanna take that risk."

"Then that's between you and them." I gather up the tools, going on with not looking at her. Carol doesn’t go away. She sits down at the bench and leans forward to get my attention.

"No,” she says. “It's between you and me.” She waits for me to look at her before she keeps talking: “If you tell your Dad, he'll tell them, and like I said, maybe they'll understand, maybe they won't."

"I don't wanna lie to him," Carl says.

"I'm not asking you to lie," she answers. "I'm asking you not to say anything."

I look at her, thinking she told this to Oliver once, and Patrick, thinking that of all the secrets I have to keep already, this isn’t going to be one of them. I won’t. I can’t stand it anymore.

Beth starts singing upstairs and Carol glances glumly at the floor, and without another word she stands up, brushes herself off, and leaves the cell block. I wait a few minutes, thinking about my dad, until I carry the wood and tools back out to the courtyard. Glenn catches me before I go, tells me, “Hey, could you give these to Oliver for me? I don’t wanna go in there, in case I expose anyone.” He hands over a cloth. I unwrap it. Patrick’s glasses. I wrap it up again and nod. “They're clean. Hershel put them in boiling water, just... thought he'd want them back."

“Thanks,” I say.

"He was a good kid." Glenn clears his throat. "Look, it's getting late. We'll finish gathering all the bodies tonight, then bury them in the morning. Let him know? In case he wants to bury his brother?"

I nod.

"Oh, almost forgot. We were making sure all the cell blocks were clear earlier," Glenn adds, "to make sure no one was still lurking around. Well, on our way out, I found a horde of books in the boiler room. Did you put them there?"

“No,” I say.

Glenn nods. “Well, could you take them back to the library at some point? I can't touch them, otherwise—"

"I got it."

"Thanks," Glenn says, and while he leaves I see my dad in the field, deconstructing the pig pen. The piglets are gone, as well as the walkers at the fence, and I put two and two together and realise they were all slaughtered to draw the clusters away. I have enough time to stop moping about it before I get to the pen, ready to offer a hand.

“Not this time,” Dad says, so I stand back and watch. He still has blood on his shirt. There are gas containers next to a pile of pen rubble. He’s going to burn it all.

“Think the pigs made them sick?” I ask.

“Or we made the pigs sick,” he says.

I think of two nights ago, when Oliver and I were out here, scared by the walkers and holding hands and I wonder if it was out fault, if we made the pigs sick for being — I dip my head and try not to think about it.

“I think we should stay away from Judy,” Dad adds.

“Okay.” My voice cracks.

“I don’t like it, but—”

“We have to protect her.” I nod.

“Yes, we do.”

He puts another plank onto the pile.

“Hey, Dad,” I add. “Carol’s been... teaching the kids... how to use weapons. How to kill. Their parents don’t know and... she doesn’t want you to know.” I realise that even though I’ve said it all I don’t feel any better. I still have too many secrets. Too many things I desperately want to tell him but can’t. “I think you should let her,” I say, “I know you’re going to say it’s not up to you, but it can be.”

He doesn’t say anything. He grabs a container and pours it onto the pile, filling the air with its smell.

“Dad?”

“Thank you for telling me,” he says, and sets the gas container far away.

“Yeah...”

We stand in front of the pile.

“I won’t stop her,” he tells me. “I won’t say anything.” He lights the match and we watch the fire catch. Then he steps over to a blue toolbox, opens it, and passes me my gun. I hold it, and I watch him fasten his own holster around his waist. He steps over to me and strokes my hair and squeezes my shoulder. “Give Oliver his machete, too, okay?”

“Okay.”

While he burns his shirt, I walk back inside.

* * *

 

Later, by nightfall, I catch myself falling asleep and jolt. Oliver wakes up, too. I’d apologise, but he looks like he might pass out again so I wait. He looks at me, groggy, and his voice is so quiet when he says, “Hey, man.”

I smile. “Hey.”

We don’t say anything for a minute.

“Dad’s going to let Carol keep teaching you,” I say finally.

“You told him?”

I nod stiffly. Oliver seems to understand, or he’s too sleepy to care.

“People keep apologising to me,” he mumbles. “I only went to sleep because they kept telling me when they passed by.”

“What else do you want them to say?” I ask.

“Nothing,” Oliver murmurs slowly. “I don’t know...” His face is all folded up while he shuffles into my chest, and listening to him fall asleep is like finishing a drawing; you're never quite sure, just a little more, until then, all of a sudden, it's that last bit of shading and you just know.

I breathe into the top of his head, smelling his smell, and then I can hear someone coming and I push back and sit up. It's Dad. I can tell by his footsteps. He pulls the curtain back to see us.

"You two okay?"

I nod. His right hand is bleeding.

"What happened?" I whisper.

Dad tries to flex his fingers, but it must hurt too much because he stops. “I'll get Hershel to look at it. Listen...” He sighs. “Karen. David. They were killed today, while they were in quarantine. I just found out. Tyreese, he found them in the courtyard...” He looks at his hand and sighs again. “I need you to get some rest. We have things to do tomorrow.”

“Dad...”

“Go to sleep now, Carl."

Then he's gone and I'm staring at his empty space. "Night..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carl's "it's too easy to lose" speech was taken directly out of the comic.
> 
> Happy reading.


	8. Season 4 ~ Isolation, Part 1: Tom Sawyer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter from ya boi's pov.

In the night, Oliver has an asthma attack. It was very quiet and strange. He was very willing to just wait for it to go away, but it got worse and he was turning odd shades of grey, so I got Carol and Dad, and since his inhalers were in D block, I got spares from the infirmary. Things were very easy after that. He was pretty embarrassed. Said he only had the attack because of a nightmare, but he wouldn’t tell me what happened in it.

In the morning, he wakes up early to help Glenn and Maggie dig graves. He doesn’t even notice his machete and beanie propped together against the wall—I left them there as a surprise, but I guess they’ll just wait until later. He didn’t notice his brother’s glasses either. I take them so I can give them to him.

More people are sick now. Michonne’s taking a run out to get medicine from a veterinary hospital. Tyreese volunteered. Daryl and Bob, too. It’s strange not to see my sister all morning. I do chores to fill time and get done with still more time leftover, and then I remember the books in the boiler room and I go to find them, heading through C block’s tombs. I don’t like the boiler room, but I try not to think about it. Inside, it’s the same as I last saw it. Dim and dingy and dark, except now instead of my mom lying in the middle of the room, there’s just an old, brown, blood stain. The books are on the desk, next to the telephone, stacked in short piles inside a crate. I read covers. _Twins. Elsewhere. Butterfly Lion. Misery. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer —_ I think these are Oliver’s.

I can’t carry them on my own, so I go to find him.

He’s in the graveyard, sitting at Patrick’s newly dug grave. He hears me coming and lets me sit with him for a while. Glenn and Maggie are getting done on filling in the last few graves, wearing bandannas and gloves. They give me sorry-looking nods.

Oliver’s crying. I can see the wet soaking his bandanna. When I hand him Patrick’s glasses, he holds them for a minute, then puts them on Patrick’s headboard, propped on the edge. The scratching on the board reads: _Patrick De Luca, 1994 – 2011._

“I gotta wash up,” Oliver mumbles, and gets up. I follow him slowly to the cafeteria, where he washes his hands and face in a bucket, then throws it away. By the time I get there, he’s done and sitting at the counter. I sit on the outside and watch him tear up a tiny coriander stem with his fingernails.

I reach out to touch him, but he pulls his hands into his lap.

I try not to look defeated or embarrassed, but he’s never done that before and I can feel my face heating up. "You didn't wake me up," I say.

Oliver shrugs, taking care to tear another coriander stem into four equal parts.

"Oliver..."

He stops and looks at me, looking angry and un-Oliverly. I don’t say anything else because I’m scared to. I think of when my mom died, how angry I was. I think of the boy I killed, and all the others I’ve watched die. And I think of how people talk to me, how they don’t treat me like a kid, except my dad who only treats me like one, and how angry that makes me and how angry I have been for so long.

"Come on," I say, almost rudely. "I want to show you something.”

* * *

 

They are Oliver’s. All of them.

“I thought you kept them under your bed,” I tell him.

“How did you know that?!"

“You’re not very subtle...”

We get to it, collecting any stray books into the crate and hauling them one end each across the prison. They’re so heavy we have to take breaks. I’m sweating before we make it out of the tombs. As we cross the courtyard, we see the medical run stocking up Zach's car. He died on the run to Big Spot the day before last and I only find out because Oliver tells me.

Finally, we arrive in the library and dump the books by the nearest shelf, and then we collapse across some beanbags to rest, groaning and sweating and too exhausted to speak for a few minutes.

“I think... I think we just carried half a tree,” I say finally, and I’m going to make a joke about it, but I realise Oliver is crying again.

I shuffle to sit up, thinking what to do, and then realising I shouldn’t do anything, so I don’t. I sit and I wait and eventually Oliver stops and sits up.

“Come on,” he says, “let’s put the books back.”

We do, and then we head back to my cell. Oliver takes my hand while we’re walking along the corridor and it’s like a weight is suddenly lifted from my shoulders, and it’s just enough to make things feel somewhat okay again —as okay as they can be for now— before my dad turns around the corner.

Oliver and I let go quickly.

Dad is marching for us and I think, oh, God, I think he saw. I think he saw and he’s pointing and yelling, “Where the hell have you been?" and I’m glued to the spot, mumbling, “We... We were in the library,” and I’m so taken off guard that I almost tell him about the stolen books, but I catch Oliver glance at me and I remember not to say anything. Dad eyes us both up, seeing but also not seeing because he won’t understand that what he saw or not saw is just something Oliver and I do, and then he says, “The Council's decided to separate everyone who's vulnerable to the office blocks. Need you to get set up."

"Okay?" I say, not sure what for.

Oliver nudges my arm, mumbles, "Us, man," and I turn into a firework.

"Are you kidding?!"

"Look..." Dad pinches the bridge of his nose. "It's what's gotta be done. You're at risk. You're kids." Inside, I turn to rock. Medusa herself in that word ‘kid’. I hate it.

"We aren't kids."

"I'm not giving you a choice," Dad tells me. He gives Oliver a quick, challenging glance, but he’s not going to argue, so Dad looks back to me. "Go pack your things."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy reading.


	9. Season 4 ~ Isolation, Part 2: Office Blocks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back in Oliver's head again.

Back in Carl’s cell, I find my machete and my beanie.

"Yeah,” he says, sulking, “surprise."

I clip the machete to my belt, then pull my beanie on. It makes today feel better. Bad, but better. Carl is packing, tossing things into an orange duffel bag from under his bed. I see the hat Michonne must’ve been talking about. It’s big and brown and brilliant.

“Thank you,” I tell him, and he stops packing for a second and just watches me. “What?” I ask.

He points. “Missed it.”

“Me, too,” I say.

Footsteps are coming. I turn and watch Rick stop in the cell doorway. He leans on the bars, rubbing his neck and shifting his weight on his heels. Carl is back to packing and sulking: "Hand me what's in there. No, that. Not that.” “Okay, okay.”

“Hey...” Rick says over us. "It's for your own good.”

"Dad, we're fine. We shouldn't be locked away with a bunch of kids."

"I need you in there," Rick insists. " _Both_ of you. Keepin' an eye on Judith. On everybody else. Makin' sure they're safe." I watch his forehead fold a thousand times over.

Carl holsters his gun. Rick shuffles his feet.

"If anybody gets sick you let me know," he says.

"What if they've already turned when I find them?" Carl asks, slinging the duffel bag over his shoulder.

I look at the floor, sore.

"You don't fire it," Rick warns, "unless you absolutely need to."

"But you know I _might_ need to, right?"

They watch each other.

Finally, Rick says, "G'on."

* * *

 

We don’t talk for the walk to the office blocks. Carl keeps his duffel on his shoulder and I keep my hands in my pockets. I think I hate having my hands in my pockets. Sometimes pockets feel more like pant-handcuffs.

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Carl says finally, “earlier, talking to my dad."

"You didn’t,” I say.

Carl sighs and holds the office block doors open for me. "I don't want to have to do that – put anyone down if they turn. I will, if I have to. I just wanted you to know that."

“That’s okay,” I say.

“Really,” he insists. “I don’t like killing them.”

"I know," I say, meaning it.

He nods, looking tired. “Okay.”

"C'mon, man, let's go find a room."

* * *

 

Glenn, Doctor S, and Sasha have all come down with the sickness, too. Maggie told us. She looked scared, but she didn’t say so. Judith’s being kept in quarantine down the hall with Beth. They can't come out. Carl is scared, too, but he doesn’t say so either.

The office blocks suck.

A lot of kids and elders have already moved in during the day. Carl and I choose an office together. It’s dusty and smells like rot, and our beds are only two sleeping bags and a pillow on the floor—Carl gets the pillow because I’m allergic to the feathers. I keep my inhaler close while we patrol the halls, and we wind up in the same part of the building where we sat at the door looking out to the neglected parking lot, listening to music that day. I’d like to do that again soon.

Before long, we catch Hershel heading along the corridor, heading for the door. We head after him.

"Where're you going?" Carl calls out.

Hershel stops and turns to us, sighing. "I'm down here away from ya'll 'cause you kids are supposes to stay away from me."

"We've been walkin' the halls," Carl says. "My dad told us to look out for everyone."

"Well, you should keep your distance."

Carl stops walking and points.

"You're walkin' towards the exit..."

"I need to go out there."

"The cell blocks?"

"To the woods."

"So you're sneakin' out?" Carl asks, and I think we both realise at the same time that Hershel was who moved the key that day.

"Don't need anyone worryin' about me," Hershel insists. "And I damn sure don't want some kid tellin' me I can't go."

At this point, Carl looks at me, as if he’s expecting me to chime in for back-up, but I don't, and Carl looks like he wants to suddenly punch him. I step back so he can’t, and he looks back at Hershel. "I can't just let you go out into the woods by yourself," he says, a little deflated.

" _‘Let’_ me?"

"I can't stop you, but I'd have to tell my dad."

"Well, go ahead then." Hershel waves him away. "I'll be out there by the time you find him." He's leaving. Carl walks after him. I don't.

" _Hershel..._ "

He turns to him, losing patience, and under two, bushy, white eyebrows, his pale blue eyes narrow.

"If you have to go," Carl goes on, "then I have to go with you."

"Carl..."

"I _have_ to."

* * *

 

Hershel waits for Carl to come back with his things, and while he waits, he musters enough humour to laugh.

"That boy is more stubborn than I am old."

"He pretty stubborn," I mumble.

Hershel looks at me and laughs, his white beard bobbing back and forth under his hidden chin. "Well, _I'm_ pretty old."

I stutter. That wasn’t what I was meant by that. Hershel doesn’t seem to mind. He grins at me, then then he just watches me, his eyes all bunched up and sympathetic.

“Son, I’m sorr—”

"You’re sorry,” I say before he can, “I know.”

Hershel smiles tightly.

I get this miserable rock in my throat. “He... He stole my chocolate,” I explain. “The son of a bitch stole my chocolate.”

We both laugh. Except I’m also crying. Hershel puts his hand on my back and waits for me to stop. I wipe my face on my sleeves—my sleeves are permanently damp now. Finally, I calm down again.

"Oliver, if you don't mind, I'd appreciate it if you stayed here and kept an eye on everyone."

I nod. I didn’t want to go anyway.

He pats my shoulder and calls me a “Good boy.”

Carl returns. He’s wearing his hat. I trip over my own feet.

“Let’s go,” he says.

I blink and blush and step aside awkwardly. As Carl passes me, he tips his hat. I stuff my pockets with my hands.

"Err, be careful out there,” I say, “you know, err... don't fall over."

Carl narrows his eyes. I have no idea why.

“Right,” Hershel says, “we’ll try not to fall over."

* * *

 

To take my mind off the hat, I take a break from patrols and ride a spinny chair through the empty corridors. Then Lizzie rounds the corner, coughing into her elbow. I stumble to a stop and stand up.

“Lizzie—”

“I told Mika to stay away,” she says quickly. “I don’t want her to get sick, too.”

“It’s okay,” I say because I don’t know what else to say. “It... It’s okay.”

“Don’t come too close!”

I stand back. “Okay. Okay.”

Lizzie coughs. “It’s A block, right? Where the sick people are?”

 _Death row,_ I think, and nod. “Carol's keeping watch over there. Find her. She'll know what to do."

Lizzie nods. She looks scared. As she leaves, I stand there, staring, and then I head to my office and try to think of something else. It doesn’t work very well. Not while I climb on the desk and sit on my hands. Not while I stare at the ceiling and count to four over and over. Not until Carl comes back.

I must look upset, because he asks, “What’s wrong?”

"Lizzie got sick?” I tell the ceiling. “I saw her a while ago.”

“Yeah, Mika just told me.” He looks anxious. “You—You didn’t touch her, did you?”

I shake my head.

Carl climbs up onto the desk and takes a seat next to me, feet up on the chair, glaring into his knees. I sit up, propping my legs up, too, so our legs tangle all the way down to the ankle.

Carl sighs. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

I watch him.

"You know," I say, "worrying about me isn't going to make me love you any more than I already do."

He shuts his eyes, whispers... "Jesus."

 _Yeah,_ I think. _Jesus..._

He knocks our knees and takes my hand. I guess I know why, but it’s not going to be me who says it first.

"How'd it go with Hershel?" I ask instead.

"Good, actually," he says. "He got his elderberry and I didn't shoot two walkers."

I frown. "Because _not_ shooting two walkers is such a great accomplishment?"

"I was gonna shoot them," Carl explains. "But Hershel said I didn't have to, so... I didn't."

I watch him. Carl watches the floor. We’re still holding hands. Still feeling that hurricane. My eyes trail up to that hat — I reach out and touch it. Carl looks at me.

“Like it?”

"Yeah," I reply, "pretty pretty."

Carl laughs and shoves me. I shove him back, and then we’re wrestling. I tackle him to the floor and hold him in a chest-lock, but Carl is stubborn and competitive and currently going through a growth-spurt, and a sudden burst of energy has me collapsing to the ground and with him rolling over to pin me down. I grab at his shoulders. He grabs my hands. We’re laughing and grunting and his hat falls to the side. I give up fighting, so Carl sits up. He looks at me. I don’t know what I look like — probably tired, lying here trapped between his knees. He just grins and puts his hat back on. I put my hands on his hips. And then we’re not smiling anymore. We’re just looking at each other, breathing.

"You’re, uh... you're sitting on me,” I say.

“Yeah.”

I glance up at his hat.

“Michonne said it was your dad’s,” I say so I don’t say anything else.

“Yeah,” he answers, “gave it to me when I got shot."

I’ve seen the scar on his chest.

"He calls it a club," he adds.

"Club?”

"Getting shot,” Carl says. “He got shot before all this. He was in a coma for almost two months before he found us."

I look at the ceiling. "Must seem like a nightmare to him."

"Yeah. Think the fact I had a seizure mighta convinced him to give it to me, too."

"You had a seizure? Jesus. Why?"

"You know," he says, smirking now, "worrying about me isn't going make me love you any more than I already do."

He mimicked my accent, which is something between a D.C. Virginian accent and a North Dakota one, and sometimes my mom’s Italian accent comes in and my _‘erm’_ s sound like _‘err’_ s or my _‘oh’_ s shorten to _‘o’_ s or I’ll even roll my _‘r’_ s a little if I talk too fast.

My chest fills up with air and my body catches fire. I think of how liking Carl is like liking chocolate pudding, most of the time, even though there’s pizza and ice cream sundaes and brownies and marshmallows too, and even though I like all of those, too, and even though I probably shouldn’t like the chocolate so much and should probably pick something else and stick to that instead, I’m just really really good with the chocolate.

**_Carl isn't chocolate pudding.  
_ ** _My point still stands._

"Blood loss."

My thoughts cut off.

I look at him.

"I had the seizure from blood loss,” Carl explains. “Unfortunately, a pretty common side-effect from getting shot is a whole bunch of blood loss."

I wince a little. "Do you remember it?"

"What?" Carl asks. "Getting shot? Or the seizure?"

"Both?"

"I remember just before I got shot. The deer... and I think I woke up after and told my mom and dad about it, but, nothing else."

I just nod up at him.

"It's getting late," he says, climbing off me. "We should probably get some food before it's all gone."

Later, while I’m passing out curled up in my sleeping bag, Carl mumbles something to me that I don’t quite catch. "Huh?" I mumble.

"Nothing,” he says. “It doesn't matter."

I want to know, and I want to tell him that I want to know, but I'm falling and falling and falling away into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy reading.


	10. Season 4 ~ Indifference and Internment: Kickback

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Carl's head again.

My back is sore when I wake up. Oliver’s getting dressed across the room. With one eye, I watch. He’s losing weight, looking all scrawny and older than he is, with dark shadows for a ribcage.

"Morning, Carl."

I look away.

Oliver scoffs. “You can be so shy sometimes,” he tells me, buckling his jeans up. “I mean, after everything you must’ve seen yesterday...” I think about him curled up on the shower room floor and blush. He grins. “See?”

“It’s not that,” I say. “You just look... smaller lately.”

Oliver’s face goes a little sad. He picks out my denim jacket from my duffel bag. I wore it the day I first killed someone. He asks, "Can I wear this?"

I shrug. “I don’t care."

Oliver pulls it on, stuffs his inhaler into his front pocket, and pulls on his beanie. Without looking at me, he says, "I'll find you for patrol."

When I’m done getting ready, I find him in the foyer and he breaks away from Mika to give me my share of breakfast that Maggie brought over. Nothing but some berries and nuts. I eat while we patrol, and as we round the corner away from everybody, we check nobody can see us, then lace our fingers together.

* * *

 

By noon, the veterinary college run still hasn't returned. Dad left with Carol about four hours ago to find something to help, but in doing so, they've left Maggie as the only healthy adult. There's nothing Oliver and I can do to help her either because we have to stay in the office blocks. Mika keeps crying, and occasionally Judith, too, and finally, to take my mind off it all, Oliver takes me to the door overlooking the neglected parking lot. I’m watching the trees and he’s reading Tom Sawyer — he managed to somehow steal it back at some point.

“Carl!?”

I turn to face the room. "Dad?"

Oliver looks up from Sawyer and frowns.

“I think I heard my dad,” I explain.

"Think about something enough you start hearing it," he says. "I'd know."

"No, no. I wasn't talking to—"

"Carl!"

This time, Oliver hears it, too.

"C'mon," I say.

"Carl..."

I skid around the corner, Oliver behind me. My father stands at the end of the corridor lugging a large supply bag over his shoulder, two other full ones beside him. He looks stressed and tired.

"You okay?" I ask.

He smiles. "Was gonna ask you that." We walk towards him but Dad steps back at the same pace, so we stop, and so does he.

"We're okay," I say.

Dad nods, shifting his eyes between us. "No one's sick? You didn't have to do anything?"

I shake my head. "Haven't had to use my gun, Dad."

He nods. "And Judith?"

"With Beth."

"Good." He sets the trash bag on the floor. "Found some food on the run." He slides the bag across. I catch it and sling it over my shoulder. "There's a bunch of fruit that're in there so have everybody brush their teeth after."

Dad picks up the other trash bags and walks away.

"Can we come out soon?"

Dad stops, turns. "Not jus' yet."

"Dad,” I insist. “We were around you when you were in the middle of it. Oliver was in there. And we were around Patrick. We didn't get it. We can _help_ you."

"Thanks,” he says, “but I need you to stay here."

He's walking away again, and I watch him... until Oliver pushes me to go after him. I stumble forward, clearing my throat. "Dad."

He looks at me.

"Look,” I say, “I will stay, we both will, but..." I sigh. Dad's frowning. "You can't keep me from it."

"From what?" he asks.

"From what always happens..."

"Yeah. Maybe. But I think it's my job to try."

Finally, he leaves. I stare after him. I hear Oliver walk up to me but I don’t turn to him. I just let him pull the bag off my shoulder, and then he hooks my two fingers with his two fingers, and I go with him.

* * *

 

As the sun sets, we get done eating our peaches, and Oliver and I brush our teeth in the office block bathroom, drooling and pulling faces at each other in the mirror. Two more people fell ill today. Pulling faces is how we don’t think about it.

It’s on our way back to our office that we hear the gunshots.

"Carl..."

I snap my head around. "Dad?"

"Boys..."

We run.

"Boys!"

In the next corridor, Dad's holding a flash-light. The moon draws stress lines across his expression. He motions us to hurry. "I need your help." The three of us head down to the fences—away from the gunshots. "We gotta keep 'em from cavin' in,” Dad explains. “The walkers’re getting too heavy."

We go through the watch tower, then out into the inner fence strip. That terrible smell sticks to my throat and nose like tar. Then we see the state of the fence, and Oliver and I stop in our tracks. The walkers are stacked on each other, trampling themselves, and the fence is hanging low enough that soon they’ll climb over into the inner strip.

Dad takes us to the worst part. There are chopped wooden beams propped up along the mesh already, doing all they can, but there aren't enough to hold it yet. We don't wait. Dad explains how, and we get to work, wedging the beams against the fence and hammering them into place. We set up at least ten more, all while we can hear the other beams splitting, hoping for the best.

“Mr. Grimes?”

Dad looks at Oliver.

“What — What happened to Carol? I didn’t see her come back with you.”

Dad doesn’t answer him.

“She’s dead,” Oliver says, “isn’t she?”

Dad just grabs a beam for me when I struggle with it, telling me, "I got it."

"Let me _help,_ " I insist, lifting the other end. Again, something starts cracking. I dismiss it — until the whole beam snaps in two. On reflex, Oliver launches himself at it. I yell. Teeth snap at his fingers. Dad yells, drowned out by the shrieks and growls, and then we’re just pushing the fence, using bars and metal signs to avoid teeth. It’s heavy. Too heavy. I can’t stop it. None of us can. Then the next beam is gone and the fence collapses. I run, yanking Oliver back by his collar. And then they're coming, _pouring_ into the inner strip.

“Dad, come on!”

He’s shoving through, launching through the door and slamming it closed. I'm heaving my breath. Dad turns to us, his mouth is wide. We all jump back when the walkers bang and shove from outside.

"Boys, stay close."

We stumble into the parking lot. The walkers see us come out and change course to the fence closest to us. It starts dipping in.

"Dad... what do we do?"

He wipes his mouth, looks at me, thinking and thinking and thinking, and then he says, "We gotta take them down.”

“We can’t see anything. Dad, it’s too dark.”

“I’ll get the bus,” he replies. “Stay here.”

We do. Dad parks one of the buses adjacent to the dipping fence, lights beaming at our target. He then climbs out and ushers us to the armoury bins lined up against the fence behind us. He grabs a rifle and hands it to me. "You got it?"

"Yep."

He takes another rifle and hands it to Oliver. "Know how to use a gun?"

“Err... in theory.”

“You ever fired one?”

Oliver shakes his head.

Dad just nods and puts a firm hand on his shoulder. "Today's the day you'll learn then..." He grabs a rifle for himself and motions us to follow. "Magazine goes in here. Release is here. Make sure to latch it. Pull back the operating rod. The rounds speed up. Keep squeezing the trigger for rapid fire, okay?"

We both nod. Oliver looks very focussed while he readies his weapon — I guess storytime has served its purpose. Dad looks like he’s thinking the same thing, too. He stops and looks at us. He takes my shoulder.

"You shoot or you run," he instructs us. "Don't let them get close, okay?"

We’re two boys made of nothing but adrenaline and nods. And then there’s a loud _clang_ and the whole fence panel slams into the gravel. Walkers flood into the parking lot, stumbling over each other. We start shooting. The parking lot rumbles with bullet-fire and walker after walker drop to the asphalt, black oozing puddles pooling around their heads. I catch Oliver jolt back from the kickback of his first shot — it’s too bad you can't fire a gun in a library. I keep shooting. Headshot. Another. Throat. Headshot. Oliver gets some too after several moments.

We move back to make more distance after a few minutes, but the cluster is thinning. Dad's ammo runs out and he takes out an advancing walker with a hard blow to its temple. I shoot it through the head, then I throw him a magazine from my pocket. He loads up while Oliver and I keep going.

Finally, the last walker is down, and we overlook the parking lot. As the silence sets in, my ears begin to ring. I get to finishing off the last few stragglers. Dad turns to me. I watch him. He looks exhausted and worried and afraid. He has to look away. I know why. I know what this means to him: There's a hole in our home, a chink in our armour, and it's never going to be like it used to and there's nothing we can do about it, and he’s known it all along but he didn’t know it would be over so soon.

I look at the floor, feeling guilty and sad — sad like I feel when I’m alone and remembering. Then Dad looks at me and he seems so sad, too, like he’s standing here in front of me feeling totally alone, swallowed in the remembering, too. I hear a car engine and look. It’s the vet college run team. They're back.

I sigh. "Dad..." He looks at me. He’s crying. "Everything's gonna be okay."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy reading.


	11. Season 4 ~ I Did What I Had to Do

Dad meets the run group and gets the medicine to A block while Oliver and I go back to our office in silence. He’s rubbing his shoulder and wheezing. I reach into his jacket pocket and hand him his inhaler from it. He shakes his head. I take the cap off and insist. He takes it. I watch. A coyote yips in the distance. Trees swoosh in the breeze. Water rushes along the stream outside the fence, an owl hoots, and crickets sing. But what I can’t hear? I can’t hear _any_ walkers.

Oliver’s face looks dim-blue under the moonlight. He takes another puff. I breathe in deep when he does, then stop because he rolls his eyes.

"This is why I don’t like taking it in front of you."

We stand there for a second, and then that second rolls into the next, and then Oliver hooks my wrist with his fingers and pulls me into the office blocks. He lets go when people start emerging from their offices, asking us what happened, if everyone is safe. I tell them everything is going to be okay.

I’m exhausted when I get back to the office. I curl up in my sleeping bag and listen while Oliver closes the door behind him. I hear his machete clatter against the floor across from us, and then I feel him lie down along the back of my knees.

"You're a good shot," he says into my hip. I smile about it for a second until I start to think about all the bad things inside of me, and then I start to realise that being proud about them is just another product of it all. Sometimes I think there’s so much bad in me that I’ll burst with it. I’ll turn into something worse than a walker. I’ll turn into a monster.

I shuffle away and sit up.

"Oliver... I gotta tell you something."

Oliver doesn’t say anything, but he’s listening. I think he’s listening so hard I could think something and he’d hear it. I hope not.

"My dad took my gun," I say first, saying what Oliver knows because that’s a good place to begin. "He did that... because I did something bad."

Oliver doesn't look as confused as I expect him to. He just waits while I struggle to collect the right words in the right order.

"I killed someone," I say, watching my knees so I don’t have to watch his face. "It was, uh, in the attack. He was part of the Governor's military. Just a kid.” I take a breath. “The fight was over and he was running away — ran right to us. Hershel, Beth, Judith. They saw it."

I should say it. The last detail. The last detail that Oliver will finally understand and see me the same way I see myself.

"He was handing over his gun, and I just...” Just, I think. There’s no ‘just’ about it. “I shot him."

A long time passes after that. I don’t look at him. If I do that big, black cloud, all my bad, will eat me up in one bite.

“I look at you,” I say, tears already rolling — I swat them away. “I look at you and I see him, sometimes. I think... how can I be the kind of boy who either kills boys or... or...”

And then, like crazy, I hear the words, "It doesn't matter."

I look up. There’s no big, black, bad cloud. There’s just him, Oliver, sitting on the floor looking at me.

“What?” I ask. And he repeats, “It doesn’t matter. You did what you had to do." And I hate him for it. And he looks like somehow he might hate me to so I tell him, “He wasn’t the first.” I tell him, “I killed my mom..."

Again, he says nothing, and it makes me furious.

"It was only a few days after we got here. One of the prisoners let the walkers out of D block and we had to run. It was just Mom, Maggie and me. When we got into the tombs, Mom went into labour. We hid in the boiler room. Something went wrong. Mom started... bleeding. Maggie had to cut her open. I couldn't save her."

 _Don't let the world spoil you,_ she told me, but it’s hard to live in a spoiled world without turning a little spoiled yourself.

"I shot my mom," I say. “ _I_ ended it.”

I think I’m crying, only it’s hard to tell because Oliver is holding me. And it feels good. _I_ feel good. Good like doodling on a piece of scrap paper. Good like dew on fence posts and the vegetable garden early in the morning. Good like sponging Flame down after a hard run. Good like what it feels like to be held, and to hold on back, because that _does_ feel good. _Crazy_ good. _Crazy_ terrifying. _Crazy_ amazing. Crazy _Oliver._

I pull away. I feel sad and teenage boyish, and the confessions keep on coming. "I killed Dale, too. A walker got him."

Oliver frowns. “Dale Horvarth?”

I nod.

“That’s his toolbox, outside,” he says. “That name’s painted on it.”

I wipe my face as I nod.

"But, if a walker got him, how was it your fault?"

"I snuck out,” I answer. “Found a walker stuck in the mud. I was messin' with it, but when it got out, I got scared and ran away. It must’ve followed me, found Dale first."

I scowl at my hands. Oliver just watches.

“Why don’t you hate me?” I ask him.

He smiles at that, like he thinks I’m funny.

"I'm not afraid of you, Grimes,” he says.

I look at him like he’s crazy because he really really is.

“I’m not gonna think you're some nut-job for protecting your family,” he says, “or putting them down when they need it, or, tickling walkers when you were a kid. I get it. I mean, killing dogs and peeing out of windows isn't much, but I get it. I do. I've done bad stuff, too."

“What stuff?”

Oliver’s face goes a little soft.

“I let someone die,” he says. “I was alone, and I heard men yelling and laughing, lots of them, so I hid. I heard a girl, screaming. They... They were...” He shakes his head and winces. “I heard it happening. At first it was just the screaming, and, begging, and grunting, but then it all went quiet and it was just skin on skin... a bad kind. And I didn’t help her. I ran away.”

We don’t say anything else for a minute. I have to wipe my face a lot. Oliver seems to want to talk about something else because he reaches for my duffel and takes out my family portrait. It’s Dad, me and Mom, about five years ago.

“Your dad’s shaved,” Oliver comments, “and your mom. Man, she’s totally beautiful. You look like her. You have her hair, and her freckles.” I like that thought, that Oliver thinks I’m as beautiful as she was—a weird kind of thought, but still a thought. “Your eyes are all your dad, though.”

“Put it back,” I say, ready to go nuts.

He does. He lies on his back and I lie down, too. We have to top and tail so that he’s never too close to my feather pillow. I look at his shoes, thinking about how he doesn’t sleep without socks on.

“Carl?”

“Hm.”

“Can I come up there?” He sits up. I pull my pillow out from under my head and toss it by Oliver’s feet. He shuffles up and lies next to me. "Thanks, man."

I’m thinking about my mom again. I decide to tell him, "Jus' before she died, she… she told me: _'I don't want you to be scared. You take care of your dad for me, alright? And your little brother or sister.’_ She said, _‘You're gonna be fine. You are gonna beat this world, I know you will. You are smart, and you are strong, and you are so brave. And I love you.'_."

It’s hard to not cry, so I shut my eyes. " _'You gotta do what's right, baby. You promise me you'll always do what's right. It's so easy to do the wrong thing in this world. So, if it feels wrong, don't do it. If it feels easy, don't do it. Don't let the world spoil you. You're so... good.'_."

I stop. That part’s always been the hardest to believe.

" _'My sweet boy. Best..._ ” I hold my breath, then try again. “ _Best thing I ever did. And I love you. I love you. My sweet, sweet boy, I love you.'_ "

When I open my eyes Oliver is staring at me.

"You're crying," I tell him.

"I am."

I watch him, not sure what to do.

Oliver sniffs out a small, "Sorry," but the tears don't stop. "I just… God, I didn't think I could cry like this anymore, since Pat. I thought I was all cried out." He starts laughing then. I don't know why. "Amazing," he says. "You're totally amazing. Like, really, really."

I shake his head. "I think about what she told me all the time. I just wanted you to hear her, too – I mean, what she said – hear what she said."

"Yeah."

"Yeah..."

He folds his knees up to his chest and hugs them. I get this scared feeling like he’s decided he’s had enough, that he doesn’t want to be my friend anymore.

"It was rocks," I say.

Oliver looks at me, confused.

"I was throwing rocks,” I elaborate, “at the walker. I wasn't tickling it."

Oliver looks at me and he laughs. I try not to, but I laugh too, and for a few moments, we're just laughing, and then Oliver is frowning—not in an annoyed way, I don’t think. I try to tell him in my head that I want him to kiss me again, to really kiss me, like it didn't even matter, like reading a comic or picking a weed or crushing on a girl rather than a boy. But Oliver doesn’t notice. He just gets up, pulls off his jacket and shoes, and asks me to hand him some pants to sleep in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy reading.


	12. Season 4 ~ Too Far Gone, Part 1: On Pause

The next morning, I wake up alone in the office. I figure Oliver might be on patrol, or visiting his brother’s grave, so I head for the gardens to start chores. The cafeteria isn’t open yet. Nobody is on fence duty. Nobody is even on watch. I don’t see Oliver in the graveyard, but Flame is still here, in her pen, which means Michonne is somewhere around, and because I didn’t know this until now, the horse hasn’t had any hay or water all night. I give her as much as I can, feeling terrible but luckily she doesn’t seem upset at me—just hungry.

Since nobody is out here, I head back for the office blocks, trying not to pay too much attention to the fence that broke last night—it’s been boarded up. My office is still empty when I arrive. Oliver’s beanie is still here, though, and his inhaler. I take them and stuff them in my pocket. I have this hunch, so I grab my own hat and head for the locked door, finding Oliver sitting on the first step outside, tapping his fingers into his kneecap.

“Hi,” I say. He turns to me, waves, and lets me sit behind him in the doorway. “No chores?”

He shakes his head. I look out at the trees. This side of the building is in shadow, but the air is still warm and the air above the tarmac wiggles.

“Feels like the prison’s on pause or somethin’,” I say, and Oliver looks around at me, cocking an eyebrow. “I mean, I’m not complaining,” I add. “I’m okay with it. It’s just... different.”

Oliver smiles — I look at that happen, and then I watch the clouds swim across the sky, all calm and quiet and lonely, and I think of Oliver; all calm and quiet and lonely, too, with big brown eyes.

“Uh, thanks,” I say, “for last night. What I told you. I didn’t think you’d want to be my friend after.”

Oliver doesn’t say anything, just leans back and pushes his shoulder blades into my knees. He wriggles, rolling his shoulder.

“Sore?” I ask.

He nods. “Kick-back."

“You get used to it,” I tell him.

Oliver looks like he appreciates that. He watches the sky again, something on his face telling me that he’s seeing things in it that I can’t; I think Oliver’s the type of boy who sees four dimensions, not three, like me. I’ve never asked, but I think he sees universes. I even tried to draw that once, the universe in his eyes, but it didn’t work—I couldn’t get his nose right.

He’s frowning.

“What are you thinking?” I ask.

He hesitates, then shuffles around to face me. He says, "I just don't think we can stay in one place for too long. Something always happens. Sometimes it's easier to run.” He inhales. “Pat and I—when things would go bad, we'd run, always... Leave all our ghosts. But, Patrick's gone now. He’s dead. And now...”

“Don’t leave,” I say, and suddenly I can’t not say it, and I’m watching his face as I say it and I can’t tell what he’s thinking and after a few more times saying it I think I’m only saying it to stretch time until he says if he will or he won’t.

And then Oliver says, “I wasn’t going to...”

He says, “You’re everything to me, man."

And I'm whirring around inside my head and Oliver thinks it's funny because grins — I do, too — which is why I decide to touch our grins. I've never wanted to kiss someone so much as I want to kiss him, so I do kiss him, and when I pull back, the whole universe explodes in my face.

I’m out of breath. “Sorry.”

He’s out of breath, too.

“I just...” I swallow. “I just... really wanted to do that.”

He mumbles something, smiling.

“What?” I ask, smiling, too.

“You...”

“You want me to...”

“To — yeah. Yeah, man, I do.”

So, I do, again. I kiss him. And I keep kissing him. Kissing like they kiss in movies and pictures and music and books—well, none I've ever come across. But I kiss him like that anyway, and he kisses me back. I think I black-out. I think I’m jumping around all over the place, plummeting through the fences and back again, tangling into his hair and his hands and his teeth, only I'm still kissing and kissing and kissing him, and after some time we slow down, not so much kissing anymore but touching our mouths, totally gentle and sweet and there's no turning back now. This matters and — and, dammit, I like this so much. I think I get caught up thinking how much I like this, because then I'm laughing and I have to pull away and Oliver starts laughing, too. Then he kisses me again, laughing into my laughter, and I think my body is growing, like I'm Alice in Wonderland and Oliver is the cake.

"Can't breathe," he says finally.

"Oh." I blink worriedly. "Do—do you need your inhaler?"

He shakes his head and laughs, and then we’re kissing again. I don’t remember when we stop, just that at some point later we do and we’re talking, leaning back against the door frame to face each other with our legs crossed at the shins.

“I didn’t know your surname,” I say, playing with his fingers, “not until I saw Patrick’s grave.”

Oliver shrugs. “It’s not like some big secret or anything. It was just never really important.”

“De Luca,” I say.

"No. No, it’s not Dee Luca like Lucy. It’s De Luca," he says, almost with an accent.

“Oh,” I say. “Got it. De Luca. What is it again? Spanish?”

“Italian,” he says. "Mom's side. Dad took her surname when they married, instead of keeping his."

"Why?"

Oliver shrugs. “It was the deal they had. She’d leave Italy to marry him, but only if they kept her last name. Think it caused some issues though, with the synagogue—Dad was Jewish.”

"So, can you speak some?"

"I don’t know Hebrew.”

“No, Italian," I say.

“Oh. Yeah. Err...” Oliver’s head tips back and his eyes roll inside his head, thinking of a sentence. When he says it, it’s floaty, like a song, and I decide in this moment that I'm going to live in Italy when I grow up, except that's impossible, so instead I decide I'm going to live in Oliver when I grow up, and then that thought gives me chills and I have to stop thinking about it.

"What does it mean?" I must look pretty flustered, because Oliver laughs. I ignore him, insist: "What's it mean, man?"

He translates: "The dishes won't wash themselves."

"Oh."

Anti-climactic, but I still grin at him. I get this feeling like he’ll kiss me again, but I picture Dad's face if he knew, or Mom's. I think that if there are any such thing as ghosts, she definitely just had a front-row seat of _plot twist_ — so I stand up. He stands, too. He is the quietest person I know, but I hear him clear as day...

"You’re going to be okay, man."

I look at the fences. Some walkers are trying to get through. Oliver takes my hand. I let him, and we lock the door and head back for the offices.

"What do we do now?" I ask along the way.

"I don't know," Oliver answers. "I guess we just figure it out."

"Are you gonna tell anybody?"

He doesn’t say anything for a few beats, then, like pulling off a Band-Aid, says to me, "No."

And I say, "My dad. He'd..."

Oliver is already nodding.

"I'm sorry," I say.

Still nodding.

"One day," I blurt, and we’re both walking very slowly now. "Maybe. I mean, just—"

"I get it. Really."

We're not looking at each other. I squeeze his hand, then let go. “Come on,” I say, “let’s go see if breakfast is ready.”

* * *

 

Breakfast isn’t ready, but Michonne and Hershel are in the parking lot, loading walker bodies into the truck. Oliver volunteers to help them. I don’t because I know I’m not allowed. Instead, I catch Dad heading for chores.

“Hey!” I call out. “You didn’t wake me up.”

Dad squints at me.

"Thought I'd let you sleep in," he says.

I stand in front of him to get him to stop. “I should help."

"Good,” he says. He looks over at Oliver for some reason. “What’s he up to now?”

“Helping. Why?”

“I’ve gotta go talk to him. Daryl, too."

"Right now?" I ask.

Dad just looks at me. "No," he says, patting my shoulder with his gardening gloves. "Soon... Soon."

We head down. Michonne, Oliver and Hershel leave to burn the bodies — I smile when Oliver waves at me from the trunk, then I help Dad tend to the peapods. I realise I forgot to return Oliver’s hat and inhaler.

Dad holds out a peapod to me. I take it, pick out a pea and taste. It's sweet and fresh and soft on my tongue.

Finally, Dad and I are done and as we head back up, he tells me I can go see Judith now. I go to find her, all but snatching her from Beth when I see them in the office foyer. I kiss Judith’s forehead so much that she tries to pry herself away from me, and then I'm mumbling to her and Judith is listening to me and snuggling into my chest.

"She missed you," Beth says.

I sit and set Judith on the floor. She plays with the toggles on my hat. "Thanks — you know, for looking after her."

Beth just smiles.

"How's your dad, after everything?" she asks.

"He's gonna be alright," I answer. "How's Glenn? Is he still in A block?"

"Yeah. Maggie’s in there with him. Just needs his rest. But he'll be okay. Everything's gonna be alri—" Then, out of nowhere, the ground shakes and moans. The ceiling above us crumbles. Someone screams. Someone else is yelling. Judith starts crying and I stand and pick her up.

"What happened?"

Mika hurtles around the corner to us, shortly followed by Luke and Molly. They look terrified. “There’s a tank outside!”

“Carl, come on,” Beth says. “Kids, go to A block, stay with everybody else." She takes Judith from me and hands her to Lizzie. “Take her while I’m gone.”

“Okay.”

"Keep her safe," I tell her, leaving after Beth. And then we’re outside. Maggie, too, and Bob and Sasha heading across the courtyard. Immediately, I see the guard tower. The top’s been blown apart, the roof on fire, and smoke rises up into the sky. Opposite us, Dad is leaving C block. His gun is drawn, and he yells, “Get back!” Daryl and Tyreese are with him. They join us at the fence to overlook the fields and front gate. Like Luke said, there’s a tank parked in the centre of a crowd of trucks, all lined up outside the fence, and standing on the hilt of the tank, is the Governor.

"Rick! Come down here," he yells. "We need to talk."

Dad shifts, out of breath.

“There's a Council now," Dad shouts. "They run this place!"

"Hershel, on the Council?"

My stomach lurches to my throat. A soldier brings Hershel out from one of the trucks. He hobbles to stand in front of the tank. Maggie clasps her hand over her mouth. Beth calls out to him. I can see other figures in other trucks.

"What about Michonne?” the Governor asks. “She on the Council, too?"

Another soldier grabs her from another truck and pulls her to stand next to Hershel.

"Surely, this _Council_ of yours, wouldn't be so irresponsible as to put a child at risk?"

Then, a third soldier pulls Oliver out of a truck. He looks very weak and very bruised, with a bandage around his head, bled through. Someone whispers his name. I only realise it was me when Tyreese takes my shoulder. I grab his hand, then let it go.

"I don't make decisions anymore!" Dad shouts.

The three of them are made to kneel down in front of the tank.

"You're making the decisions today, Rick,” the Governor says. “Come down here, let’s... let's have that _talk_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oliver originally died here, (the first time I posted this on another twd fanfic site) but I was encouraged to keep writing, now, three years on, I'm still online posting this story on another site xD oh dear
> 
> Happy reading.


	13. Season 4 ~ Too Far Gone, Part 2: The Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It continues...
> 
> (thank you for the kudos and comments, they all meant so much to me)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This originally ended last chapter with Oliver dying, but I had a change of heart.

I don’t remember how it happened. We were burning the bodies and then I woke up in the camper van, bleeding and in pain. The Governor hit me with his gun. He apologised, when I came to. He even patched me up. My hands were bound. I could see Hershel and Michonne sitting across from me on seats, hands bound, too.

"You should eat." He dropped something foil into Hershel's lap. "It's gonna be a long day. Nobody's gonna hurt you."

"I don't believe that," Hershel said.

"I don't care."

"Jus' tell us what this is. Please?"

"It isn't personal."

"Then what is it?"

The Governor ignored him.

"Michonne,” he said instead, “I want you to know: Penny, my daughter. She was dead. I know that now. I don't wanna hurt you. I don't wanna hurt anyone. I need the prison, that's it. There're people that I need to keep alive. And you three are gonna help me take it. No one needs to die."

"I'm gonna kill you..." she said.

"No, you won't."

"I am gonna take y—"

"Stop it," Hershel said. "You want the prison?"

"I'll _take_ it,” the Governor corrected. “As peacefully as I can."

"Governor?"

"Don't call me that."

Hershel watched him.

"Your people," he said. " _Our_ people. We can find a way to live together. These people you need to keep alive, do you love them?"

"You're a good man, Hershel. Better man than Rick."

"Everything you've said. The way you've said it — you've changed. So has Rick."

"The two of us, will never be able to live together,” he said. “Michonne and I will _never_ be able to live together."

I remembered the story: Michonne cut his eye out with a shard of glass.

"We'll find a wa—"

"I'VE FOUND A WAY!"

I flinched. The Governor saw and softened his face.

"I'm tryin' hard,” he said. “All kinds o' ways I could do this. This way you get to live, and I get to be..." I thought he would finish, but he stopped, stood, and walked to the door.

"You say you want to take this prison as peacefully as possible?" Hershel asked, stopping him half way in and out of the camper van door. "That means you'd be willing to hurt people to get it. My daughters would be there. That's who you'd be hurting. If you understand what it’s like to have a daughter, then how can you threaten to kill someone else's?"

"Because they aren't mine."

* * *

 

Now, the grass is damp and itchy under my knees, and I put effort into not collapsing, not think about how much I need my inhaler. I see Rick passing through the courtyard fence in the distance and make his way past the garden to the fence between us.

"Let them go, right now. I'll stay down here, talk as long as you want. But you let them go. You got a tank. You don't need hostages."

"I do," the Governor replies. "This is jus' to show you I'm serious. Not to blast a hole in our new home. You an' your people—you have 'til sundown to get out of here, or they die."

"It doesn't have to go down this way."

"I got more people. More fire power. We need this prison. There it is. It's not about the past. It's about right now."

Rick is shaking. "There are children here. Some—Some of them are sick. They won't survive."

"I have a _tank,_ ” the Governor says. “An' I'm letting you walk away from here. What else is there to talk about?"

I watch Rick's mind work overtime.

"I can shoot you all,” the Governor says, “an' y’all'd shoot back, I know that. An' we'll win and you'll be dead. All o' you. But it doesn't have to be like that, like I said: it's your choice, Rick."

There are walkers coming. The Governor shoots them one at a time.

"Noise'll only draw more of them over," the Governor says. "The longer you wait, the harder it'll be for you to get out of here."

_Why doesn't someone shoot him now? Daryl? Maggie? Bob? Carl's a good shot. He could do it. He could end this.  
**Don't be a dick, Oliver. If Carl or anyone shot The Governor right now his soldiers would tear home apart. Just... trust Rick. He can do this.** _

The Governor looks up to the sky, squinting.

"You got maybe an hour of sunlight left,” he says. “I suggest you start packin’."

Rick stares at him. Then he looks at us.

“The longer you wait,” The Governor repeats. “The harder it’s gonna be for you to get outa here.”

"We can all…" Rick’s voice is so hoarse he has to start over. "We can all live together. There's enough room for all of us."

"More than enough. But I don't think my family would sleep well knowin' that _you_ were under the same roof."

"We'd live in different cell blocks," Rick says. "We'd never have to see each other, 'till we're all ready."

"It could work," Hershel encourages. "You know it could."

"It coulda," the Governor answers. "But it can't. Not after Woodbury. Not after Andrea."

I know that story too. He killed his friend, let him turn... with Andrea trapped and tied up in the same room.

"Look, I'm not sayin' it'll be easy," Rick debates. "Fact is, it's gonna be a hell of a lot harder than... standin' here, shootin' at each other. But I don't think we have a choice."

"We don't. You do."

Rick’s face folds up like curtains.

"We're not leaving,” he replies. “Try your forces. We'll fight back. Like you said, gunshots'll jus' bring more of them out, they'll take down the fences, and without the fences, this place is _worthless._ Now. We can _all_ live in the prison, or _none_ of us can."

Suddenly, the Governor drops down from the tank and takes Michonne's katana from one of his soldiers. I hear its _slink_ and its _ring_ as he storms over to us. I scrunch up my eyes, bunch my shoulders, hold my breath. He passes Michonne, then me, muttering, "I'll fix the damn fences," as he stops directly behind Hershel.

“No!” I croak, and then something heavy knocks me to the ground. I hear Rick say my name. I glare at the guy who hit me. He has my machete, sheathed against his back in a leather strap, then I’m yanked up and knelt back in place, heaving my breath.

“Dammit!” Rick says. “He’s just a boy!”

The Governor narrows his eyes at him, then me, but seeing everything is in order again he looks back at Hershel. Steel touches his throat and I die inside.

" _You,_ " Rick shouts, "you, in the pony tails, is this what you want? Is this what _any_ of you want?!"

The woman he's talking to looks terrified.

"What we want is what you got, _period,_ " Mitch, the guy driving the tank, yells. "Time for you to _leave_ asshole!"

"Look," Rick insists. "I fought him before. An' after, we took in his old friends. They've become _leaders_ in what we have here! Now if you put down your weapons, walk through those gates... you're one of us."

Nobody says anything.

Rick keeps talking.

"We let go of _all of this_. And _nobody_ dies. Everyone is alive right now. Everyone has made it this far. We've all done worse kinds of things just to stay _alive!_

But we can still come back.

We're not too far gone.

We get to _come back_.

I know, we all _can change_."

The world lets Rick's words hang in the air, for a moment. Everything is still, for a moment. The Governor allows his weapon to lower from Hershel's neck, for a moment...

But then that moment ends.

"Liar."

It is the last whisper I hear, right before the Governor swings through Hershel's neck. There is a _shlink_ and a gargle and all I do is watch. _I just watch._ Warm splatters my face. A crimson circle grows across Hershel's collar. Then, slowly, Hershel drops to the grass like a rock.

The noise is what attacks me first. Two ear splitting screams. Maggie and Beth. And then Rick's roar – _"NO!"_ And then it's the gunfire. Everywhere. I haven't looked away from Hershel. He's still alive. I think I'm crying, or screaming. I'm not sure. I can't check and feel my face because my hands are still bound behind me. I am shoved back. It hurts so bad I cry out and panic, but it's Michonne.

"Go!" she screams. She starts barrel rolling in my direction. I roll, too. "To the trucks," she orders. "Oliver, keep going!"

When I get behind a truck, I force myself to my feet. Michonne and I run in tandem, trying desperately to weave our way through the chaos. She finds a broken number plate on the back of a truck and uses it to start cutting her binds. A spray of bullets hit the car next to me and I duck behind it. Michonne tells me to stay there and wait for her, so I do. She's almost done when I see a man running towards her. I don’t know what happens next. I just know I hurt him real bad — he’s on the ground and my shoe is hitting his face. I feel the crack, and I don't stop. After the fourth or fifth blow, he passes out, and then, after the sixth or twentieth, his skull completely caves in under my sneaker. And then Michonne shoves me to the floor, screaming at me to stop, and I'm sobbing and screaming because my blue sneaker is bright red and bits of brain and bone are stuck between my laces. Panic over takes me. I roll over onto my front, retching and gagging. And then Michonne has cut my hands free and I clutch my gut in time to brace for a wave of vomit.

"Oliver, your machete."

I look at her. She motions down to my victim, grabbing my machete from him and forcefully strapping it around my torso, yelling at me when I try to refuse. I rub my sore wrists, the skin red and raw and marked, coughing up yack and spitting.

"GO THROUGH THE FENCES!"

I can hear him not far away.

"IN YOUR CARS! GER YOUR GUNS! WE GO IN!"

Michonne is pulling me behind another truck, but the engine starts, and again, she has to lead us away.

"We gotta go."

I try to argue.

She pulls me towards the trees. I fight against her. “Oliver!”

"KILL THEM ALL!"

"Oliver, get down!"

It's a hard shove and I'm flattened into the long grass near the tree-line. All we can do is watch the soldiers advance towards the fences. The crash bulldozes through my eardrums and the tank drives over the fence like it's made of plastic. The trucks follow. There's nothing anyone can do. They're in the gardens and the paddocks. Flame leaps out of her paddock, panicked and stumbling. I see with my own eyes as her leg snaps. Michonne flinches. Walkers are already there, grabbing Flame by the tail and flanks and muzzle, tearing into her. I look away. Familiar faces and strange ones scatter across the prison, retreating and taking cover. It's hard to tell the difference between enemy, friend, or undead. There are too many.

The prison bus is parked on the other side of the courtyard, facing away from the oncoming soldiers, and I make out people rushing on board.

_Good,_ I think. _Get somewhere safe._ And I'm searching for his hat, but I don't see it. _God. Where is he?!_ I spot Rick. The Governor’s pinning him to the floor, serving punch after punch, choking him. I make noises and point, but Michonne's already seen him. She has her katana, too. She holds a finger up to her lips and shushes me, and I nod, follow her, my machete drawn. I've never seen Michonne like this. Her face is hard and blank and distant, like she's flipped a switch. She's almost behind the Governor now, and I'm watching from behind the overturned bus.

She ends it. Driving her katana through the Governor’s chest. I watch his body jerk up, the red end of her blade stuck out in front of him. Michonne yanks it out. He collapses. I stumble over while she helps Rick up. He grabs me, heavy enough I have to blink the dark away from my eyes.

Michonne tries to help us.

"C-Carl," Rick rasps at her. "Where’s Carl."

"I don't know," she whispers.

Rick stumbles away from her. I help him.

"Carl!"

I have to push against Rick so he doesn’t collapse. He does anyway. He’s shot. I’m so short of breath I can’t even cough, instead taking big gulps of air to last me until I can force the next.

Another explosion goes off. It blows apart the look-out bridge between C and D block, and debris and rubble rocket off in all directions around us. Another explosion. Rick falls again, but this time I do too. I hear the walkers coming. I’m so exhausted.

"CARL!" Rick screams. "CARL?!" He screams again, and again, and again. My wind pipe is so swollen I'm dying. _I’m dying._ But I’m still getting up again and walking. We come to the tank. The door and cannon are on fire. Someone blew it up. Rick stops and leans on it. I know that if I rest now, I won't get up again.

There is a walker limping after us. Somehow, I trudge forward and crack my machete through its skull, only I can't pull it out—too weak—so the walker falls and I go down under it. I _drown_ under it. Breathing is like drinking through a straw if someone were to pinch it. Rick tries pulling it off of me, tries telling me to get up. There are walkers behind him and — and two bullets take them out. I'm so exhausted I don't even flinch. I just wait for something to sink its teeth into me, or for my brain to shut down.

_Three minutes. Three minutes without oxygen until you die, right?_

Something yanks. I anticipate teeth. It’s knees, I think. Yes, knees. I'm pulled onto a pair of them. When I open my eyes I see Carl. I'm gasping, grabbing at his shirt collar, and then my inhaler is shoved inside my mouth. So much medication is sprayed that it stings cold and bitter and familiar.

"Oliver, _breathe!_ "

It hurts, but I do, and it doesn't work right away so Carl keeps spraying. He does it so much that I have to shove him away from me. He stumbles and I double over into the asphalt, choking and wincing and burning and breathing.

"Jesus!" I heave. “Are you trying to burn my tongue off?!”

The relief on Carl's face is priceless. He hugs me. I hug him, then push him away again so I can stand up.

"Judith," Rick rasps. "W-where is she?"

Carl is trembling. "I don't know."

We get to searching. Carl has to help us both. It iszn’t long before we spot it. I try to force it away — lonely baby-carriers in the middle of courtyards are never a good thing. _It's fine. Nothing._ It's facing away. Even with Carl's help, Rick becomes heavier and heavier the closer we get. I know why. I wish I didn't. I beg anything that my eyes are lying to me, that everything that’s happened over the past few days is all just a bad dream. I'll wake up in my cell to Carol telling me and Patrick to go harvest the coriander. I’ll listen to music, do kitchen duty.

_Don't let this be real._

But it is real. The red. It's too real. It fills the baby carrier, soaking into the seat, turning the once pink fabric bright scarlet. Rick screams. I stumble out of his grip, heaving, and everything left in my stomach comes up and out of me. I startle when I hear gunshots. Carl doesn’t stop, emptying his ammo into another walker's skull until Rick grabs him. They cry. Then Rick is grabbing me.

"We gotta go." It takes Rick pulling us to either side of him to get us to move again. "It's over."

We limp across the courtyard. Walkers fill the prison. I see their faces. People from my block. Some guy who always called me _‘Patrick Two-Point-O’_. A girl who lived next door to me. She gnaws down on another dead man's ankle. He was from B block. He collected rocks.

_I don't want to be here. Not here._

The bus is gone, and we can't leave the way the Governor came through because it's swarmed with walkers, so we leave through A block, through the locked door, out to the parking lot fence, where we just pull blockage down and leave. And it's over. Our home is gone, burnt to the ground under bullets, walkers, and tank tracks.

Carl takes a glance back when we all reach the peak of a small hill, but Rick pulls him around.

"Don't look back. Carl, jus' keep walkin'."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looking forward to how the rest of Stale M&M's takes to this site,, and how any of you might respond to updates. Of course, if you aren't into waiting an wanna keep reading, go over to fanfiction.net for it, but I will be posting regularly here from here on out until I've caught up, and on beyond that.
> 
> Happy reading.


	14. Season 4 ~ After, Part 1: Bent and Busted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Your boy carl again.

Don’t look back.  
Just keep walking.

Don’t look back.  
Just keep walking.

Don’t look.  
Keep walking.

They’re doing fine on their own so I let go, keep a pace ahead, a pace faster, get further away, keep distance, don’t care, don’t feel, no time to be sad, no time to be anything... just like last before only I’ll do it right this time.

"Carl.”

Can’t look back.

"Slow down."

Gotta keep walking.

“Stop!”

Crap, he sounds pissed — I stop.

"We... we needa stick together," Dad says, saying his words that are just words nothing else. I’m sick of them. I can hear them both grunting, breathing, hurting. Don’t look back. "We gotta find a place,” he’s saying, “get food, supplies."

Don’t look back.

"Hey…"

His hand touches my shoulder.

"We're gonna be—"

I do look now. Can’t help it. I look back and I see the way one of Dad’s eyes are sealed shut and the other is so red I don’t believe he’s not blind. I see he’s torn off his sleeve and has tied it around the flesh wound on his thigh. I see that his arm is cut, and his chin, too, and his mouth is so swollen he makes sound when he breathes. Oliver’s in a bad way, too; hair soaked in sweat and blood coming from the gash on his right temple. Blood has dried over blood that has already dried, and the skin around it is swollen and _still_ bleeding. The bruise stretches across his eyebrow and all the way down that side of his face. There’s another, right across his shoulder where that guy smacked him with the rifle butt. Blood from the wound on his stomach is wetting his T-shirt and flannel, and his right shoe is dark red instead of blue. The rest of him is covered in dirt and grass stains. It’s in his wounds, too.

I look for too long. They are bent and busted people. Both of them. Busted is my father and Bent is Oliver holding on to him – bent all over the place like thorns; I’ll get all cut up if I get too close.

Bent looks away and Busted’s hand slips from my shoulder, and I shut down and go on auto-pilot.

Keep walking.   
Don’t look back.

* * *

 

The sun is setting and I come back to manual when the scenery starts to change. Tall trees surround the road and a train line has appeared alongside it, powerlines overhead. I see an old barbeque shack up ahead and my feet veer towards it, leaving the road for grass. Dad and Oliver follow. They’re too loud. How can anyone think straight when bent and busted thorns don’t stop trying to tear you apart? I tell them to shut up in my head but they don’t hear me.

The parking lot is littered with abandoned motor bikes and syphoned cars and empty beer bottles and old papers. The building is small and everything that isn’t made of stone is painted green. A wooden banister runs across the front and I follow it to the door. Dad draws his gun and Oliver uses his inhaler. His chest sounds like a lawnmower. Don’t care. He takes out his machete, and now that he’s ready, Dad opens the door with a creak.

"Wait outside. Okay?" he whispers. "Keep watch."

" _You_ keep watch,” I retort. “You can barely _stand_. I'm not gonna let you go in there alone.”

" _Excuse me_?" Dad hisses. I don’t mean to look at Oliver for back up. He doesn’t look back. Doesn’t even notice. He stands back, eyes down, arms all folded up like he’s trying to disappear. _Fine,_ I think. _I’ll pretend you don’t exist. Maybe then you’ll leave me alone. Maybe then none of today would have ever happened and I would still have a sister and a home. . ._

"We've done this _before_ ," I growl. "I'm gonna help you clear it. You should just let me do it myself."

Dad grits his teeth, swallows the blood in his mouth, and says, "Let's go."

I’m sweating. We enter the bar and check it through. The first thing I notice is the large mound of chairs and furniture stacked up across the middle of the bar, a room over.

“Kitchen’s clear,” Dad says. I go into the bar and they follow me. We smell it before we see it, then we hear it. Just one. It emerges through the archway, leaving the shadows, then gets caught behind the wall of stacked chairs between us. He’s been here a while. Behind him is a full shelf.

 _‘Joe Jr’s_  
HOT SAUCE!  
$3.33’

"That might be all that's left," Dad says.

Oliver coughs. I look away quickly, gritting my teeth while I glare down the corpse and pick up my gun. “I can get it from here.”

"No," Dad croaks, "it's weak. I'll draw it out.”

I step aside. Dad picks up an axe from the table. From that same table, I pick up a note. It reads: _'Please do what I couldn't – Joe Jr.'_ Oliver’s trying to read it over my shoulder. I tilt the paper, hear a small, “Thanks, man,” and I shake my head and flip the paper upside down.

“Stay back.” Dad yanks a chair out, and it brings a whole section of the barrier down with it. He steps back to let Joe Jr. through, and when Dad’s axe comes down through his skull, he isn’t strong enough to put him down. I pick up my gun, aim it at its skull. "Don't! I've—" I pull the trigger, and they both collapse. Dad wrenches his axe out, swings around, and screams at me. “I said not to!"

I scream back, "You couldn’t do it with the axe!"

"I had it! Every bullet counts. We’d’a needed that one later.” He cools down. “See what you both can find. Let’s move on.”

Again, I look at Oliver like I always do. I look at him like he’ll think what to do into my head for me, like he might fix this, fix everything, even though he is just as bent and busted as the rest of us. I might burst into tears, so I kick a chair across the floor and march into the back room.

* * *

The corn cobs are dry and rotten, which sucks big time, but the potato chips are good, as are the two jars of pickles I find, and the tinned plumb tomatoes and small jars of pesto Oliver found. We'll eat weird. But we'll eat.

Leaving the hot sauce, we go find Dad.

"Kitchen wasn't empty after all. My haul..." He dumps bottles of water and crackers into a shoulder bag. "You?"

I empty my arms into the bag. “I win.” And I don’t care that my voice broke, or that I can feel the skin around my mouth peeling, or that my hair feels like an unwashed frying pan when I touch it. I don’t care that Oliver found as much as me or that he’s wheezing again or that back there when we got into the kitchen he whispered that he was sorry and I cried for minutes before I could stop. All I care about is that Dad knows I found food with or without his help. With or without both of their help.

We leave the bar.

* * *

"Hey."

I’ve been thinking back to around the time Daryl and Michonne brought back a weirdo stray from a candy store, how me and the same weirdo stray started becoming weirdo strays together, and we’d talk without talking and turn imaginary together.

"Hey."

We pass some tracks at the crossroad, heading into a suburb; one of those that are through-roads between towns with white panel walls and no fences and small front porches with swing chairs and solar lights in the ground. Big trees cover the area well — if it had a fence, it would be a good place to settle.

I’m done settling.

“Hey.” Finally, I stop and turn to my dad, who has become a human broken record. _Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey._ He looks at the house and adds, "That one's as good as any."

The door is ajar, already broken into. We file in, weapons drawn, eyes and ears open. I head into the next room along while they go and check the kitchen and dining area. The couch is turned over and old trash is strewn across the floor. It’s a mess, but empty.

As I head down the hallway, aiming to check the back door. Dad calls out to me. I tell him, “I got it, all the doors down here're open."

"Jus' _stop!_ "

Exhausted, I turn around... then I slam my arm against the wall. "HEY, ASSHOLE!" I rattle the whole house, shake the air, cause an earthquake, and we are the only ones left to see it. "HEY, SHITFACE!"

Again. Harder.

"HEY, ASS—"

" _Watch your mouth!_ "

"Are you kidding me?" I ask. "If there was one of them down there, they would've come out."

Dad’s lip twitches. I ignore him and go upstairs. I’m followed, but at least not by Dad. All the rooms are empty, like I said, so I go into the first bedroom on the right. It must have been a teenager's room before, with posters on the walls and clothes hung up and music stacked in racks. There’s a fireplace and a bookshelf and a ukulele and a skateboard. A guitar hero. A record player. An Xbox 360. A polaroid camera, and a telescope. The bed is in an alcove, through another doorway. It's cool.

While I look through some games, I see my reflection in the plasma TV screen and get this dizzy nostalgic headache, because I don’t fit here, no matter how much I smile. I can see it.

Have to keep going.   
Can’t look back.

Oliver stops outside the bedroom door. He wants to come in, but I push the videogames off the stand, and while they clatter to the floor, I rip the cables out from behind the TV and take them downstairs.

It's getting dark. To make sure the house is secure, I tie the cable between the front door and the curtain hook. Still, Dad’s getting Oliver to help him shove the couch against the door.

"I tied the door shut," I complain.

"We don't need to take any chances," Dad grunts.

"You don't think it'll hold?"

"Carl."

"It's a strong knot!" I argue. "Clove hitch. _Shane_ taught me, remember him?"

Dad looks furious.

"Yeah,” he answers, “I remember him. I remember him every day.” His head tilts. “There somethin' else you wanna say to me?"

I hold my tongue, then step over and help. I have to do the majority of the shoving, but eventually the couch rolls over against the door and it’s secure.

"You alright?" Dad asks; not me – Oliver. He’s wheezing so bad he’s retching. I toss a plastic bag at him, but Oliver still throws up against the wall. It’s not much, but it takes a few minutes for the dry heaving to stop. When it does, Dad lays Oliver across the floor and puts him on his side, yelling at me for staring but I hardly hear him because I convince myself I’m watching him die right now and that there’s nothing we can do about it.

“Dammit, Carl. Water! _Now!_ ”

I grab the water. Oliver drinks and lies down for a while and Dad tells him he can eat once he keeps the water down for a few minutes. Oliver doesn’t complain. Oliver hasn’t complained once.

"This'll have to do for the night," Dad says. He removes his holster and sits on the couch, rummaging through our haul.

I set up somewhere to sleep, and when Dad holds out a bag of potato chips to me, I shake my head and ask, "You gonna have some?"

He tells me, "You should eat."

"We should _save_ it," I retort.

Dad limps over, reaching out.

"I don't want any."

This makes him mad. He throws the bag to the floor at my feet, and says, " _Eat it..._ ” and I glare at him, wanting him to scream at me, to lash out, but he just walks away and says, “Share with Oliver — and find him something to sleep on." He disappears into the kitchen. I snatch the packet, stuff my hand in, fill my mouth, and throw the rest of the bag at Oliver. He flinches, but otherwise ignores me. I figure he probably doesn’t have much of an appetite right now.

"Upstairs," I say eventually. “You can sleep upstairs.”

"I’ll take the floor," Oliver says, taking more inhaler — at this rate, I don’t know how long it’ll last. "It’s not like I’m not used to it."

"Upstairs," is all I say.

Oliver pulls himself to his feet. I just watch. He’s taking too long so I walk away and wait for him at the staircase. When he’s in the hallway, I go and wait upstairs, and so forth until he finds me outside the alcove in the bedroom. Dad’s in the bathroom. As Oliver enters the bedroom, he looks tired and in pain and like he’s trying hard not to throw up or black out. He passes me, into the alcove, and scoops up the comforter. He tries to leave with it, but I step in front of him.

"Jus' sleep up here," I insist.

He frowns at me.

"The house is clear," I add. “We don’t need you downstairs.”

“What?” He sounds small. “But, we might need to go? I—”

“Then I’ll come get you,” I say like it’s obvious. Oliver swallows. I scoff. “What, you think we’ll leave you behind?”

He doesn’t day anything, but his eyebrows are all folded up like I was right. My chest crumples up, but it doesn’t stop me from stepping in front of him again when he tries to walk past. I get so angry. So angry so I push him back — it amazes me how much better this makes me feel. I do it again, push him, and he trips onto the bed.

“Stay here,” I tell him. “You can’t come down there.”

He glares at me.

“What?” I glare back. “ _What?!_ ”

"Why are you being like this?" Oliver asks. He stands up, leaning against the door frame now, the dropped comforter all squashed down at his feet. "You're being an asshole,” he tells me, whispering. “You can't treat me and your dad like this."

Screw you, I want to scream. Screw you! This is your fault! This is what happens when you do things you’re not supposed to! This is what we get!

"Making me stay up here isn't gonna solve your problems, Carl," Oliver hisses, reading my brain. I try to close him out but he’s already crawling through my eyelids. “What happened, this morning, and with the prison and everything else — you have to deal with it. All of it. This isn’t about you. We’re all scared, and going through shit, so quit treating us like you’ve gotta prove something.”

“I know this _isn't_ about me!” I argue, not caring who hears now. "Look at you, Oliver, you're a mess. You almost died today!"

Oliver is panting, trying to say something, but the second he steps forward, his eyes roll to the back of his head and he collapses right into me. “Oh, crap—” I stagger back, attempting to catch him, but we hit the floor. “Agh — Dad! Help!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy reading.


	15. Season 4 ~ After, Part 2: Pudding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys are just being stupid and getting into trouble basically.

The next morning, Oliver wakes up from a nightmare, knocking my elbow so hard that I drop my book and almost fling my breakfast bowl across the room. When I get done picking up some lost cereal flakes, I see Oliver shrivel up against the sun and hide under his duvet. I get up and shut the curtains, then sit by his feet.

“Are you still mad at me?” he asks. “Because if you are, go away.”

I sigh, then climb across the bed and poke my head into a small duvet gap. Oliver pushes me away and grumbles something. I sit back against the wall, defeated, and then I think of something and hold the bowl of cereal above his head. In a sing-song voice, I say, “Breakfast...” and slowly, he reaches his hand out. I put the bowl in it, and he drags it in. I listen to him eat under the sheets for a few minutes.

“Guess you’re not mad,” he mumbles through a mouthful.

“Guess,” I say, reading again.

He keeps eating in private until he pushes the empty bowl out for me to put on a shelf, then, finally, Oliver comes out of hiding, squinting from the morning sun beating into the curtains. It’s not bright at all, since they’re shut, but I guess he’s feeling pretty rough today.

"What happened?" he asks.

“Passed out,” I tell Harry Potter. “Dad and I got you patched up — your head's bad, and there was a lot of dirt in your other injuries. I’ll find antibiotics today."

"They’re infected?"

 _Yes._ “I don't know,” I say, finding it hard to look at him. "It’s better to be safe.” I look at the empty bowl. "Still hungry?"

He shakes his head.

"Where’s your dad?" he asks.

"Asleep," I say, missing out in telling him that Dad passed out last night, too, that I haven’t been able to wake him yet, and then we’re just silent. I think that after yesterday, Oliver and I have a different kind of silence together now, and I think, unless we get used to it, we aren’t going to manage just being friends anymore. So, I decide to accept the silence, to appreciate that it’s the only thing we have left that might make everything feel normal again... so I read, and he looks through a small photo album by the bed. At some point, I lie down next to him. He’s trying to read a poster across the room, squinting at it, except he’s blocking the light across my page so I ask him to lie down. He does. He puts his cheek on my shoulder and reads along, and then he is asleep again.

* * *

 

Later, I’m downstairs trying to wake my dad again. I shake him. I yell at him. "Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! _Wake up!_ Wake up!"

"Carl?"

I jump, call out, "Oliver, don't come down here... Go back to sleep."

"What's wrong? You — You okay?"

"Fine.” I swallow. “Jus'... gotta go out for a while."

There are walkers at the door. They heard me.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” I whisper. “I’ll come up soon, okay?”

“Okay.”

He goes back into his room, and I wait until I can’t hear him anymore. I grab my hat, take out my gun, and leave through the backdoor. It’s only two of them. With some goading:—“Hey, you! Fresh meat right here. Come and get it...”—I take them for a walk down the street. I tell them, “Keep up,” because I can. “Keep coming. Right here, look at me.” And they do. “Very good.”

I bring them to a couple streets over.

“Just a little farther. Come on.”

Something groans behind me. I glance, and then the walker is on me. I don’t know how I don’t die, but I don’t. They’re all on me, piling, growling, biting, and it’s three, no, four, or, I don’t know. It’s a lot of bullets until they’re all down, weighing on my chest like a bolder, and I’m winded and terrified and relieved. Small things wriggle on my chest and I look down at several maggots crawling across my shirt. I shove out from under the pile, then throw up. It’s not much, but it’s not very nice either. Makes my throat sting and my stomach sore and my eyes wet and bulgy. I pick up my gun and hat, then turn to them and croak, "I win."

"The hell, man?"

I startle and spin on the spot. Oliver is standing a few feet away, gawping. Who knows how long he's been there?

"The hell _you_?" I hiss back, wiping my mouth on my sleeve. Oliver doesn't answer, only narrows his eyes at me. I put my hands up and yell, "Thanks for the help!"

He shakes his head, then turns and walks away. " _Idiota._ "

It’s possible that I spontaneously combust. Regardless, I’m going to yell at him for it. I’m going to call him an asshole and tell him I don’t need a babysitter and that I’m fine on my own. But then Oliver is coughing and I’m rolling my eyes and asking, “You got it?”

He shakes his head. “Back at the house.”

I glare at him, holstering my gun, thinking he ran to get here, over exerted himself, like in soccer or exploring tombs or speed-reading new comics too fast. Idiot. No. _Idiota._ And I remember his asthma attack yesterday at the prison and my chest turns to a vacuum, so I’m grabbing his sleeve and dragging him back to the house with me. When we file through the door we’re holding hands —we don’t talk about it— but I let go as soon as we step inside, getting that horrible _what if dad saw?_ feeling. But I forget it when I see he’s still passed out on the couch, then I run ahead upstairs. Oliver's inhaler is on the bedside table. I knew it was there. I put it there myself while he slept. He didn’t have it with him because _I_ left it here. On my way downstairs, I find Oliver sitting on the staircase half way up, wheezing, his shoulders leant forward and his head hugged in his hands between his knees.

He looks up at me and I forget to not look terrified.

"It's not so bad," Oliver reassures me. “Survived worse.”

Inhaler in hand, I march down the staircase. "You're supposed to keep this on you all the time!" I yell, and resist temptation to fling it at him. Instead, I shove it into his open palm and tell him, “Take it.”

He does.

After a while, I say, “I’m not mad at you. I’m just... mad.”

And he says, “Okay...”

And I tell him, “And I like you.”

And he says, “Okay.”

And all annoyed but not really annoyed, I ask, “Well—do you like me?”

And he frowns at me.

He says, “You’re an idiot.”

Then he walks upstairs and says, “Of course I like you.”

* * *

 

For a while I sit on the stairs, until I hear that Oliver is asleep, then I go into the living room to Dad, pulling off my shirt and hanging it over the couch.

“I killed three walkers,” I tell him. “They were at the door. They were gonna get in, but, I lured them away...”

 _Well done, son,_ he tells me. _Mighty kind o’ you._ Except he doesn’t say anything because he’s a vegetable.

“I killed them,” I say, sterner. “I _saved_ you. I _saved_ you! I didn’t forget while you had us _playing farmer_. I still know how to survive... lucky for us.”

He can’t even hear me. Even if he could he would find something to tell me I’m doing wrong. There’s always something. Something that’s not good enough for him. If he were awake he’d say: _You’re not meant to be wasting bullets. You’re not meant to be telling boys you like them. You’re not meant to go out alone without me._

“I don’t need you anymore,” I retort. “I don’t need you to protect me anymore. I can take care of myself.”

_Carl, listen to me—_

“You probably couldn’t protect me anyway!” I cut him off. “You couldn’t protect Judith!”

That gets him, shuts him up, sends him reeling back against the wall, only he stays exactly where he is and doesn’t do anything.

"You couldn’t protect—” I stop, look up at the staircase. I’ll wake up Oliver if I’m too loud. There’s that hole in my chest that’s gotten so big I sometimes have to reach in and make sure I’m still inside, like now. I feel the hole in my chest and hear the empty echo and reach in. Something small, but something. I don’t know what will happen when it’s gone. I glare at Dad, speak like the words taste of venom, “Hershel, or Glenn. Or Maggie. Michonne. Daryl. Or _Mom._ ”

I step back.

“You just wanted to plant vegetables. You just wanted to hide! He knew where we were and you _DIDN'T CARE!_ You jus' _hid_ behind those fences and _WAITED_ for..." I take a breath, try to hold it all in, but I explode. “They're all gone now! _BECAUSE OF YOU!_ THEY _COUNTED_ ON YOU! YOU WERE THEIR _LEADER!_ "

Then I slump to the floor next to him, sniffing and hugging my knees.

"But now,” I tell him, “you're _nothing._ "

I wipe my eyes and get up, emptying the Joe Jr’s bag out onto the floor.

"I'd be fine if you died."

I’m leaving, turning out of the kitchen towards the back door, but Oliver is standing at the foot of the staircase and I don’t know how I know this but I’m not surprised at all when I turn to look at him. He says, “Sorry,” and I say, “Come with me,” and he does. Just because I _want_ company doesn’t mean I _need_ it. I prove this by leaving the house before he says yes or no, but he comes out a second later, pulling on his sneakers. I slow down so he can catch up, and when he does, I don’t look at him.

“Oh, I forgot my machete.”

“Won’t need it,” I say. “I’ve got a gun.”

“I can defend myself,” he reassures me, “plus, we shouldn’t waste bullets.”

I glare at him. He sounds like my dad.

“Then go _back_ ,” I retort, “I don’t care.”

“Hey, I didn’t mean...”

“If you’re so worried just leave.”

He doesn’t, so I keep walking. There’s a house a few blocks away and I pick it because it has a fence, and fences make me feel better no matter how short and small they are. There’s a solar power light stuck in the ground by the path, and after three yanks, it’s out and I’m twirling it around in my hand and sauntering towards the front door. Oliver stands back, but when I glance around at him he follows me. The porch is big, and the swing-set is broken, and a rocking chair is over turned. The door is shut, so I take a running start. The collision shakes my whole body and I bounce off like a basketball, hitting the decking with a _bang!_ and a loud grunt.

Okay.

That hurt.

I shut my eyes and feel my cheeks catch fire. “Dammit.”

When I look up at Oliver his eyes are down on me. I pull my shirt straight. He picks up my hat for me. I snatch it and re-sit it on my head. Trying again with another tactic, I make surprisingly short work of the door latch by cracking it open with the sharp end of the solar light.

The door snaps open.

Inside, the house is cluttered. The ground floor is clear. Basement, too, and nearly all the cupboards are open and filled with canned goods, and every surface is piled high with dirty dishes or trash. The floor is a trash can, too.

"Look for antibiotics," I instruct.

"Look at all this food," Oliver says, staring.

I turn around to him. "Leave it for now. Antibiotics’re first priority."

I think Oliver says, “Thanks, man,” but I turn away from him before I’m sure. I check every cupboard. I even check cupboards Oliver has already checked, which makes him mad big time even though he doesn’t say. I’m losing hope and Oliver is already giving up and collecting food (he teases me by saying, “I win,” under his breath and I throw a teaspoon at his leg) but then I finally notice a small metal box on the wall next to a printer and use a little key on top to open it. In it is a first-aid kid and medicine.

I sigh, grin, then turn to Oliver and say, “Actually, I win.”

* * *

 

We spend a while fixing his injuries in the kitchen. Because of storytime, Oliver knows more about this stuff than I do, so he walks me through it. However, he’s surprisingly squeamish, especially with his own body, so he doesn’t look. He sits still on the table bench seat, holding back his hair for me while I clean his temple with a bowl of water from a bottle we found in the fridge. He tells me to use the special cream instead of anti-septic (“Why?” “That type of antiseptic only damages the skin and makes it heal slower, plus, we have antibiotics now.”). When it’s done, I wrap his forehead with dressing. I don’t tell him how swollen the skin is, or how red and oozy. He doesn’t feel well either. He’s sweating a fever through his clothes and all under his chin and along his neck is swollen, too, when I press my fingers there.

Antibiotics.

I make him take two, and some pain killers.

He takes off his shirt when I ask, and I do what I did to his head to his stomach. We’re almost exactly the same size, in body; so similar we switch on who’s taller or who has the lowest voice as weeks go on (at the moment I am taller but he has the lower voice). But right now, Oliver looks especially scrawny. I don’t think he’s been eating right since his brother died, plus, we lost our home, plus, he almost died.

When it’s done, Oliver is in so much pain that he has to lie across the bench for a few minutes with his eyes shut. I rub his stomach bandage gently and slowly because he says, through a frown, that it makes him feel better.

I’d seen something before, up on top of a cupboard. A can of chocolate pudding. And I realise now is the moment to tell him. “Oliver,” I whisper, “look up.”

He does, and then he’s grinning and reaching out desperately. I climb up and retrieve the can for him, and he hugs it like a kid to a stuffed toy. He’s told me he likes chocolate, but I didn’t think he meant it _this_ much.

“I’m gonna check upstairs,” I tell him. “Wait for me?”

"You gonna be okay without me?"

"Yeah," I say, only a little defensive.

Oliver ignores this, instead says, “I’m gonna sit outside, get some air.”

I walk him out to the front porch. The swing seat is only held up by one chain, lob-sided, but Oliver sits in it anyway.

“I broke one before,” he tells me, “with Pat. We were little kids, playing soldiers. Jumped on the swing so hard the whole thing fell down on top of us, took out half the roof. Mom and Dad were livid. We were grounded for, I don't even know...”

He thinks about it for a moment, smiling.

“Okay?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he says.

“Cool,” I say. "Back in a sec. Keep the pudding company."

Oliver hugs it, and when I’m done fainting inside I get up and go back into the house. On the staircase is a box labelled: _PEANUT BUTTER_ only it’s a lie because when I see inside it’s filled with stationary. I go up, sharp end of the solar light at the ready. The first room has nothing interesting except a dead canary. Which isn’t interesting, really. It’s mostly just miserable. I shut the door behind me, then move to the next door. Empty bathroom. Shut it, too. The next door is already shut. I touch the knob, twist, and a rotten arm swings out at my face. I barely dodge it and the growl fills my ears so loudly I wince. The walker is strong, and tall, and definitely not planning on getting back in that room now.

Its arms are wedged between door and frame and when I shove one forearm snaps in two. A skull squeezes out then, and the rest of it is coming, too, so I lurch to the side, gun in hand, and aim at its face. There’s a box under my feet and I trip. The first shot hits the wall and I hit the floor. The second shot goes through the ceiling. I stagger back and a stack of books collapse across the floor behind me, but the walker’s still coming, shrieking and snapping and dripping blood. Next bullet goes through its jaw and it staggers against a laundry basket, but even faster its crawling after me and my gun is empty, _click-click-click,_ and then hands are wrapped around my ankle and my back is pinned to a wall and a pile of books. I kick furiously, avoiding teeth. It thrashes and grabs and I flail over hardbacks and tumble into another bedroom. A grab on my shoulder has me throwing myself to stand. I try to shut the door but books block it, and then rotten, broken arms are pushing inside and I’m running across the room, chased, unlatching a window, yanking. Stuck. “Come on!” I pull so hard I scream, but it doesn’t budge. The walker is here, rushing at me. I hit it over the face with a lamp and catch a glimpse of something running across the landing outside, and then I’m grabbed and yanked to the ground. It’s got my leg. _It’s got my leg._ Oliver kicks it in the face.

I stare at him, frozen.

“Carl, get up!”

My collar is yanked and I’m dragged out of the room, losing a shoe in the process. I see the walker chewing on it, not me, and then Oliver is yelling at me and telling me to shut the door and we’re kicking books out of the way and the walker is coming and I didn’t let him go and get his stupid machete and now we’re going to get torn apart. Except the door slams and we twist around and flatten our backs to it. The walker is trapped inside, banging and growling and thrashing, and we’re both heaving our breath. Oliver saved my life. Dammit, Oliver just saved my life.

I’m getting yelled at now.

"You could've been killed!”

Oliver’s eyes are huge when he’s afraid.

 _“Si cazzo!”_ he shouts, right in my face. _“SI CAZZO!_ ”

I don’t know what this means and I don’t care because I’m so angry at him. I’m so angry at everything. He knows why, too. He knows everything. He knows I hate him. But he knows I don’t hate him at all. Not even a tiny bit and then I grab him. I think he knew I would, too. I think he knows I'll kiss him, because when I do kiss him he kisses me back only it's not sweet and gentle like all our other kisses before. My kiss is furious. His, too. I didn’t know you could fury kiss someone. I didn’t know my fury could be mutual to someone else’s, especially his. I didn’t know he was this angry. I didn’t know Oliver is so angry he has electrical currents rippling through his whole body. They stun me again and again until we’re kissing so hard it hurts – but a good hurt, like... like kissing someone you want to kiss so badly that it just _hurts._

When we pull away, both of us are shaking violently. The door shudders beside us. Our foreheads are pressed, bandage to skin and hair, and we’re so close we’re breathing together. Oliver says something else in Italian, whispers it, but I don’t know what it means. I step back, pick up a white chalk, and write into the door:

_WALKER  
INSIDE_

_GOT MY  
SHOE_

_DIDN'T GET  
ME_

* * *

 

We figured, after everything, one dumb walker shouldn’t have to ruin our day, so we take it back, our day. We take it back by climbing out onto the roof and sitting on the edge to look out over the suburb, ignoring the walker reaching out of the window behind us.

There’s also pudding.

I make Oliver take another two antibiotics and pain killers. He’s to take six a day for a week but there's only enough for just under four days. Two, if I count Dad, which I decide not to mention.

Anyway, pudding...

We only have one spoon. I brought two, but dropped one off the roof on accident. Doesn’t matter. Except it does sometimes because Oliver keeps hogging it. He really loves pudding. He loves eating pudding so much that he will says he wishes he had more pudding while he’s eating pudding. I don’t mind. I sit back and spend a while watching him eat, wondering if he would taste like pudding if I kissed him now. I bet he would. Because of this, I decide I won’t kiss him; I think if I ever kissed Oliver and he tasted like pudding I would want to eat him, too.

Through a mouthful, Oliver asks, “Why are you laughing?”

I say, “We just really shouldn’t kiss right now.”

His cheeks turn crimson and he looks away so I can’t see him under his hat. He says, “Oh, sorry. Being gross.”

“No.” I laugh harder. “No, you’re totally not.”

At some point, Oliver seems to remember that he has the weakest stomach known to human existence, so he lets me have a few rounds of pudding to myself.

“I’ve missed pudding so much," I say through chocolate. “But I don’t think I can ever look at pudding again after this.”

“I can,” Oliver says, licking his fingers.

I laugh. Oliver has more pudding.

“I miss Big Cat candy bars, too, and toast," he says.

I nod. "Comics.”

"Videogames, and Cable TV."

"Mom's Sunday pancakes," I answer: They were terrible, but Mom wanted us to be the kind of family who ate pancakes on Sunday.

"And Michonne's stale M&M's," Oliver adds.

We sort of calm down after that and stop eating. The walker growls. Miserably, Oliver uses the spoon to prod at the pudding.

"I almost forgot," he said. His head dips. “Sometimes,” he adds, “when I’m around you I just, feel...”

“Imaginary.”

He nods.

"Yeah,” I say. “Me, too.”

I look down at his stained sneaker.

I say, "Oliver?”

I say, “I know you killed someone."

When he breaks down, I pull him to me and let him cry into my chest. He tells me he killed a person. He tells me he killed a person and can’t ever take it back.

"No..." I say, “you can’t.”

We eat more pudding, telling each other what else we miss:

“Post-it notes.”

“Tissue.”

“Heating.”

“Showers.”

“Milk”

“Haircuts.”

I do not agree with him on that one at all.

And at one point while we eat more, I tell him, “It happened.” I tell him, “It happened and you did what you had to do. You had to. Now you move on, ‘cause that’s what we do now.”

Oliver takes a deep breath. “Okay.”

* * *

 

The sun is setting and we’re heading back to the house, almost done with the pudding; only a few spoonfuls left.

"Oh,” I say. “Got somethin' for you."

Spoon in mouth, Oliver watches me fish into my back pocket and pull out a grey crumplement of cotton and wool. "My beanie!" Since his hands are full, I put it on for him. He still gives me the spoon and uses his free hand to pull at the beanie anyway. I shake my head and scoop another mouthful of pudding.

“Oliver?” I say after a few minutes of walking. “I know I’ve been an asshole to you.” I roll my eyes when he nods about ten times in a row. “Look... I’m sorry, okay?”

He looks a little shell shocked. I don’t think I’ve ever really apologised to him before.

“D’you forgive me?” I ask. “'Cause, I get it, if you don’t. I just... you know, really hope you do and all—” He just kisses my cheek. It’s fast and soft and it knocks me out cold inside my head. I go up on tiptoes.

He says, “Yeah, man. It’s cool.”

I take a breath, say, “Cool.”

We finish the pudding just as we make it back. I take the empty can from his hands and drop it on the curb. Inside the house, we find Dad in the same state we left him in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy reading.


	16. Season 4 ~ After, Part 3: I'm Scared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everybody's worried about Rick, and the boys have gotta figure out some new shoes...

We both need new shoes. I find a pair and a half. Oliver takes the pair; they’re dark brown and leather and worn, coming up around the ankles with thick soles and faux insides and bright red shoelaces. I take the half, since I only need one shoe anyway; it’s brown and clashes dully with my black shoe. Oliver decides to take his old pair of sneakers, tie them together, and throw them out the window — it must make him feel better because he breathes out a deep sigh and smiles.

He turns to me, looks at my shoes, and frowns. “Err... why?”

I look down and shrug. “I only needed one.”

“But... they’re odd,” he adds.

“Don’t feel it,” I say.

Oliver looks disgusted, but shrugs and says, “Guess you already have two left feet anyway. Maybe having a different colour on each might help you tell the difference.”

“Oh, _I_ have two left feet?” I laugh. “You’re the one who can’t aim for anything.”

“Says you, after today,” he retorts.

I roll my eyes.

“Yeah,” Oliver goads, standing close so he can whisper, “think I win that one.”

I stand there smiling as he walks away and goes into the alcove. He makes the bed. Because his family are all dead, his home is destroyed, and through it all, Oliver makes the bed.

“Here,” I say, handing him four pills from their boxes in my supply bag. “Two antibiotics, two pain killers.” I pass him a bottle of water, too.

He takes them, then curls up in bed.

“You still tired?” I ask.

He nods.

“Okay,” I whisper.

“But,” he grunts, sitting up, “I gotta pee.”

I expect him to go to the bathroom — the toilet doesn’t work but there’s at least a sink. But he just goes to the window and unzips his pants.

“Oh! Sorry. I didn’t think...”

“Peeing,” he says. “Turn your back, man.”

“Right.” I turn, not sure what to do or where to go. “Oh, _ick..._ I can hear it.”

Oliver snickers, then a few seconds later zips up and sets himself on the bed, kicking off his boots. I go to the window then, needing to go, too. Not proud of it but accepting it. There are a few moments of standing here, over what is definitely not a toilet, with everything in order before I can get to the peeing part, so I wait.

“Are you peeing yet?”

I jump. “Shh.”

“Sorry, it’s just, you’ve been there a while. It’s cold.”

“I can’t pee with you talking. I’m nervous.”

Oliver laughs and buries his face under his pillow. I stand here for a few minutes longer, shivering, until finally, I start to pee. When I climb into bed with Oliver, he’s sweating and looking very pale, hair sticking in clumps around his temples.

“Oliver?”

He rubs his eyes. They have bags under them.

“You’ve got an infection,” I tell him. "I... I didn't want you to worry. The antibiotics are helping, but...”

“But if I don’t get better soon, I’m probably going to die.” He sighs. “Governor really fucked me up, huh?” he asks. “Governor fucked a lot of things up...” Oliver looks sad, and then he smiles. “Don’t worry. Everything’s gonna be okay.”

I watch him. “Okay.”

We’re both quiet, so I decide to let him sleep and go see if Dad will wake up. He doesn’t. He’s less responsive now than he was this morning. Now his eyes don’t twitch when I snap my fingers in front of him. I tell him, “Whatever,” and go back upstairs, but I have to wait outside the room for a few minutes because Oliver is crying. He spends so long crying, so I leave and go back down to Dad, and I only realise I’m crying too when Oliver comes to find me a while later. It’s easy to hide; no jerky breaths or stifled sobby noises like I heard from him. I just have to turn around and pretend I’m looking for something under the couch while I wipe my face dry again.

"Hey," I say quietly.

He waves.

“Not going to bed yet?” I ask.

“Can’t sleep,” he replies. His eyes are puffy and his sleeves are damp and stretched. "Did you manage to give him anything?"

Dad is wheezing behind me, and I shake my head.

Oliver looks him over.

“He doesn’t have an infection,” he says, “so he won’t really need anything but pain killers and food, it’s just getting him to wake up for it.”

I glare at them both. Oliver catches me, but doesn’t look upset, just indifferent. He waits for me to soften my face, and after a second, I do.

* * *

 

The sun has set. It’s dark enough that the house is a shadow, but in the living room, the moon is coming through the pale curtains, so we can see okay. Oliver’s sitting beside me, crossed legs, and I’m telling him who Shane was. He had asked. And I guess I knew he would, eventually; when things died down, when he had time to think about what I said to Dad last night. I prepared myself. I thought about what I'd say to him, how to explain.

"Shane Walsh. He was Dad's best friend and partner at word, back before in King County. Shane was there when Dad got shot. He saved me and Mom, got us out before it got too bad to leave. He told us Dad was dead. Said, when he was in the hospital tryin' to rescue him, he couldn't find a pulse... He —I don't know. Maybe he didn't wanna save him, or maybe Mom wouldn't have left unless he lied about it... I don't know for sure. He... Him and Mom, after it all, they, uh, they were..."

This is hard. It doesn't seem to matter that I've rehearsed what to say, how to say it. The words just don't want to come out.

I tell Oliver about Mom and Shane's affair. I tell Oliver about how Judith might be Shane's. I tell him, despite that, Judith will always have been my little sister, and that I will always have been her big brother. I tell Oliver that I idolised Shane, respected him like a second dad. I tell Oliver about how jealous Shane got when Dad came back, and about when Mom found out she was pregnant, and Shane wanted me and Mom and the baby to himself, and about Randall, how Shane took him into the woods and snapped his neck, used his disappearance to lure Dad into the woods alone to kill him in cold blood. I tell Oliver that Dad figured it out... and that I watched him murder his best friend, and that when Dad realised I was there, that I saw everything, he thought I was going to kill him, and that I thought I was going to, too. I tell Oliver that Shane came back as a walker, and that if he hadn't, I would have killed my dad, but I didn't, because I killed Shane instead.

By the time I finish talking, I’m so drained I almost fall asleep. My head is in Oliver’s lap and he’s playing with my hair, whispering, "Thank you for telling me."

"It’s a lot to take in.”

“Must be more to go through it,” he says back. I don’t know how much time passes after this but the next thing I know, I wake up some time later, totally alone. I look around. The room is darker now, and the moon is gone.

And then my dad grunts.

I look at him.

His arm twitches.

I stagger away from him, wheeling around on the floor to stare at him. His head lifts, looks at me, and he reaches out. He groans. My breath dies in my throat and I clamber for his gun. Aim. Shaking. He groans again and stumbles off the couch, hitting the floor hard. He reaches for me again.

The crying hits me loud and terrible, and when he snatches my foot, I give up and drop my gun. “I can't,” I sob. “I was wrong... Just do it.”

“Carl.”

I look at him, breathless, my face wet and folded up.

“Don't go outside,” Dad groans. “Stay safe.”

I grab him. I scoop him onto my knees and hold him. I tell him, “I'm scared.” I tell him, “I'm scared. I'm scared..."

"Carl?"

I startle and look at Oliver, standing in the doorway watching us. I cry harder. Very slowly, like he’s trying to work out what’s happening, Oliver kneels down next to me. He waits a minute, then I reach out and hold on to him. I don’t know how long this goes on for, but eventually, Oliver helps me get Dad back on the couch. He takes some medicine and we patch him up a little. Then, when it’s all done, Oliver and I sit with each other across the room on my sleeping bag, not saying anything. The house smells of stale sweat and vomit and we’re traumatised and scared and miserable, but I guess we’re tired, too, because we pass out sometime later.

* * *

 

The next day, I wake up to a dead arm, curled up with Oliver on the floor. He’s awake, too, and I tell him, “Your stomach is loud,” and he tells me, “I think the pudding was a bad idea,” and we laugh all tiredly and groanily. The sleeping bag isn’t big enough for both of us. My toes are freezing. When I tell him this, Oliver just says, “This is why I sleep with socks on...” so I pinch his chest and he has to wrestle me into stopping.

Then there’s a small groan from the couch, and I shove Oliver off. We look at each other, then the couch, then each other, and then at the same time we’re staggering across the room. It takes a while for Dad to open his eyes. At first, he thinks Oliver’s me, and when he does get a look at me I think he might black out again.

"Are you alright?" he asks us.

I nod, choking up.

“How long’ve I been asleep?” he asks.

“Night before last,” Oliver answers, choked up, too. “Just over a day.” Dad’s holding my hand and he takes Oliver’s, too. His bandage looks crusty and dry. Oliver grips it tightly. Dad asks how he’s healing and Oliver says, “Better. Infection’s not so bad as yesterday.”

Dad nods and takes in his own new bandages.

“Thank you,” he says, like he can’t quite believe it.

I shrug.

Dad turns to Oliver.

“Thank you,” he tells him, “for keepin’ my boy safe."

Oliver shrugs, then points at me. “Kept me safe, too, sir.”

* * *

 

A little while later, we’re all eating cereal quietly lined up beside the couch. Oliver and I tell him that we found food in the house with the hedge fence, but we don’t tell him I almost died twice doing it.

"You shouldn't have risked it," Dad tells me anyway. "Goin' out there like that, it's dangerous."

"I was careful," I say, ignoring Oliver’s cocked eyebrow.

Dad notices, but nods anyway. "It's good that you found more food."

"We found even more," I admit to my bowl, "but... we ate it."

"What was it?"

"A-hundred-and-twelve ounces of pudding..."

Oliver and I grin at him and Dad laughs – this little laugh that sounds like a wheezey sigh, but it still feels good.

He says, "I know..."

My face drops and I look at him. Oliver, on his other side, is staring at the wall ahead, not moving.

"We'll never get things back to the way they used to be," Dad goes on. Both Oliver and I relax again.

I swallow the dry away from my throat, mutter, "What?" because my heart is still pounding.

Dad doesn’t notice.

"I only clung to that for you,” he goes on, voice thick and rough and scratchy, “for Judith.”

My chest aches.

Dad says, “Now she's... gone. And you. You're a man. Hey. You both are. You're men... I'm sorry."

I look into his eyes, shake my head, and say, "You don't need to be."

Dad nods at me and I smile back and Oliver goes on eating slowly and calmly. And I feel like we’re the only three people in the world for a second, and it’s sad, but it’s something, at least... and then there’s a knock at the door.

We’re on our feet, aiming at the door. Carefully, Dad peeks through the peep-hole. The room is so thick with tension a walker would get stuck in it. Then, all of a sudden, Dad collapses to the couch and burst into laughter.

" _What?_ " I hiss, and Dad just looks up at me and Oliver, grinning a grin like there’s a truck-full of pudding outside.

"It's for you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy reading.


	17. Season 4 ~ The Grape Vine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So much fluff. Oh, God. So much.

_It’s Oliver’s brain again! Missed him a bit._

* * *

 

Michonne found us. Saw our empty pudding can outside. It’s been a few hours and Carl hasn’t left her side yet. Rick’s sleeping again. I’m in the dining room, listening to a run Michonne and Carl are planning.

“Please can I come?” I beg.

“You’re not well yet,” Michonne says.

“I have a weapon,” I say. “Carl doesn’t even have any ammo left.”

He glares at me like I just threw him under a truck. I shrug at him.

“He can find a knife in the kitchen,” Michonne says, then points patronisingly, “or better yet, he can use your machete, seeing as you’ll be staying here with Rick, _healing._ ”

I groan. “Please. I’m feeling better today. I swear. It’s not like we’ll be out long. And I won’t be alone.”

"I could use a knife from the kitchen," Carl pipes up. "Or, I could ask Dad to let me borrow his gun."

Michonne thinks about this. “You should take both, just in case.”

Carl gives her this look.

“What?” Michonne asks.

“I don’t want to ask him,” he admits.

“Why?” she asks.

He doesn’t answer. His cheeks are red.

“I’ll go,” I volunteer. Rick isn’t asleep upstairs in one of the bedrooms, but reading instead. I let him know about the run, and he says he’s okay with it so long as we stick with Michonne, and then I ask if we can take his gun, just in case, and he tells me to give it to Carl, so I do. Me and Michonne go around in another circle about if I should be coming with them again, until I convince her that I’ll be fine, that, “Someone's gotta look out for walkerbait, here, right?" and Carl rolls his eyes.

* * *

 

The first six houses go by okay. Only a dozen walkers or so. One was a baby, which was terrible, and I think Carl cried, but it was alright. After a few houses, we return to the main house to drop off what we’ve found, then head out again to keep looking, and then, when we don’t feel like we’re so bad off anymore, we start to slow down and double back on houses we know are safe. I find a Scrabble set and Michonne finds some clothes, and Carl finds a grape vine. While we collect them, Michonne says she’s going to look through the house again.

Carl and I aren’t so much harvesting as we are eating, which we figure is okay, since we found enough today, so we eat our fill of grapes and then when we can’t stand anymore, we get to collecting them. Carl’s made a bowl with his shirt and it’s already full, so I go into the house and get some containers. I find Michonne in one of the upstairs bedrooms reading through some art magazines. She tells me, “I’m probably going to be a while,” and I tell her, “That’s totally fine.”

Back outside, I tell Carl, “Spill,” and he does, filling a whole container. The grapes have left stains on his shirt. But I can’t really criticize, mine’s covered in my own blood. At some point while we’re harvesting, I realise Carl’s cut his finger. “Oh...”

He looks at it. “Oh. Must’ve caught it on something.”

I step over to him and take his hand in both of mine. “Jeez, you’re a bleeder.” He bleeds on my hands.

“Sorry.”

“It’s cool,” I say, fingering around the edge of the cut to see how deep it is. He flinches and I look up to him. “Didn’t mean to hurt you.”

He watches me, eyes big and blue, and shakes his head. “You didn’t. Not — Not really.” He lets me take his hand back, and then, quickly and without thinking much about it, I put his finger in my mouth. He watches me, probably finding it weird, so I get done being a vampire and give him his hand back.

He’s still staring at me, whispering, “Thanks... that was nice,” and in the next moment he’s kissing me. I laugh and kiss him back. And then we’re just holding each other. I can smell his skin, not just the dirt and the sweat but the _Carl._ Makes me shut my eyes. Makes me put my arms around his shoulders and bury my nose into his hair and hat.

"I love you."

Yeah, I say that. I say that to him clear as me bursting into flames. The grape vines goes up. The house, too. The whole world. He hugs me tighter.

I sigh, and then I laugh and tell him again, “I’m totally in love with you, man."

He kisses me. Kissing me a little differently. Kissing behind my ear and I become a human puddle, all heavy and pushy against him, all of a sudden, so I stop and look into his eyes and press our foreheads, thinking I'm going mad, thinking he’s going mad, too, but the good kind. That kind of mad that isn’t mad at all, just... madly okay. Madly me and Carl.

We’re kissing again.

When we stop, he tells me, “I understand why you didn’t put your parents down. I thought, before, that you were kind of wrong not to.”

I’m not surprised by this, but it doesn’t make hearing it from him any easier. He seems to sense this, and touches my arm, squeezing it.

“But I was wrong,” he adds. “You weren’t wrong not to do it. I get why you couldn’t. Last night, when Dad woke up, I thought... I thought...”

I hug him again. “Yeah,” I say. “I know, man.”

“I couldn’t do it,” he tells me. “I was so afraid. I was so scared of being alone.”

He’s crying into my chest and I’m pretending not to notice, and then there’s a door shutting in the house and we pull apart quickly. Michonne comes outside, carrying a bag of magazines.

“I won’t keep them,” she says, “just... until we get out of this place.” Carl and I head back through the house with her, and the three of us go to the next house.

* * *

 

By the time we’re back to the main house, my head is throbbing and I have to rest upstairs for a while. I take my pills and sleep a little, and when I wake up, the sun is setting. I sit up and stretch until I can’t because the cut on my stomach hurts too much. Carl is sitting on the flood outside the alcove, a container of grapes beside him, and letters scattered everywhere on the floor into sentences. I read some: _MICHONNE — CARL JEFFERY GRIMES — OLIVER DE LUCA — I LOVE YOU TOO._

I can feel my face boil. He’s in the middle of writing the words _RITCHIE GRIMES_ which he changes to _RICK GRIMES_ and I say, “Whoa, your dad’s name’s Ritchie?”

He jumps and rubs his hand through the letters, blushing hard while he sits back. “Oh. Uh. Yeah... but he doesn’t like it.”

I smile. “I won’t tell.”

“Erm... how long have you been awake?”

“Few seconds,” I say.

Carl doesn’t believe me, but he doesn’t look like he’ll say so.

I point at the board.

“Want me to teach you how to play?” I ask.

He nods.

Later, we’re surrounded by so many words we could drown in them.

"Carl… 'ostentatiousness' isn't a word,” I insist, knocking his _‘NESS’_ off the board. I dip my head and vacuum a grape up from the container with my mouth. “Look, here, 'ostentatiously' is. You got _'L'_ and _'Y'_ anywhere?"

He chews, then puts _‘NESS’_ back stubbornly. "Ostentatiousness is a word."

“Bullshit!” I say, and quickly get yelled at from downstairs by Rick, telling me, “Language,” and I call back, “Sorry...” and shove Carl for laughing at me. Again, I ask, “Where’s your 'ly', man?"

"I don't have them,” he complains. He takes the last grape and bites it apart, then gives me the bigger half. “Look, come on, it’s totally a word."

"No." I laugh, chewing. "I'm not making up a crappy word just so you don't have to admit defeat. You're so competitive! You _lost_ , big guy. Admit it."

"It's a word."

"It is not,” I say in the same flat tone. Carl narrows his eyes like he’s mad at the English language rather than me. I laugh. "Jeez, look, I'll prove it."

"How?"

I crawl over to the bookshelf.

"Dictionary," I answer, enjoying the flicker of worry on Carl's face. “There's bound to be one in here somewhere.”

Carl sighs and rolls over onto his back, staring at the ceiling and rocking his foot side to side. I search on shelves and inside drawers, then over by the bed, where I find nothing but a dirty magazine — granted, we do look through it for a little while, but it doesn’t solve any language mishaps. We give up on it anyway, and at some point, I go downstairs to check Rick and Michonne don’t need anything before bed, and to apologise for cursing earlier — they don’t seem to mind.

“Carl staying upstairs tonight?” Rick asks.

“Yeah,” I say, unaware of this until now.

"Michonne’s keeping watch down here,” he tells me, “I’m taking the room across from you boys — Michonne, are you sure you don’t want to sleep upstairs?”

She pokes her head into the room from the kitchen. “I’m sure.”

“You deserve the bed,” he tells her.

“So do you.”

Rick smiles at her. I realise I’m not needed here, so I grab a water bottle, say goodnight, then disappear upstairs again. I find Carl in the same place I left him, reading through the centrefold on the floor. He puts it down, looking a little entranced.

"Hey," I say.

He smiles at me. “Heard you guys talking about sleeping plans.”

“Oh, yeah, you cool sleeping up here?”

“Dad cool with it?” he asks, and climbs into the bed. I lie down so my back is against his side. We’d make a ‘T’ shape if you looked down from the ceiling.

“Just kind of, assumed,” I answer, “you know?"

"Oh."

“Not like that,” I reassure him, “just...” I shrug. “Used to, at home.”

“Yeah,” Carl says. He sits up, so I have to sit up, too, and then I get up and retrieve the centrefold and fold through, all curled up in the comforter.

At some point, he asks me, “Can boys... you know, be... boyfriends?”

“What?” I ask a lady with curly hair and the flexibility of a cat, a little too afraid to look at Carl yet. “Why couldn’t they be?”

Carl’s quiet for a minute. “Just... never seen it before.”

I put the centrefold down and look at him. I’m not sure why I didn’t see this conversation coming. Guess after today, it’s on his mind more.

"So, erm...” He’s saying _erm_ a lot lately. “Are we... you know..."

I giggle. I hate myself immediately for it, but it happened and I have to live with it. I do this by being a living cliché and asking, "Are we what, man?"

Carl takes a breath. I think he can hear my heartbeat because he looks at my chest. I put a palm to it to quiet it, and he smiles, then looks up to me.

"Oliver... I think that we should be boyfriend and boyfriend."

Carl looks horrified with himself. His nose crinkles. I laugh. Nervous. Which makes Carl madder, until I’m nodding and his whole head does that shuddery thing where his hair looks like it moves backwards.

“You want to?”

"Yeah." I laugh. "I totally do, man."

He’ smiles so much his whole face is a smile like that smile in his family photo. I reach out and hold his shirt as not to get blown away by him. He looks at my mouth, then at me again.

“I — I was thinking, well, erm, wondering really. If — If it was okay to kiss you again? If that’s okay?"

I nod, and I nod, and nod.

"Okay," he says, and I kiss him, and kiss him, and he kisses me back. He kisses me  _back —_ back, back into the bed. He puts his hand under my shirt and I let him. It’s so good. Inside my head, I'm flipping tables and dying, but on the outside I'm just kissing him and breathing too fast. But then, all of a sudden and out of nowhere, I start thinking of the boy I once knew and how he once kissed me like this, and died.

I push Carl up.

"Wait, man."

He looks at me, confused and out of breath. "You okay?"

"Oh. Yeah.” I smile. “I just think we should cool it a little.”

"Sure," he says, sitting up. "Sorry.”

“Thanks. Sorry, too. I just..." _What if something bad happens? What if I'm cursed? And when people kiss me, something comes along to hurt you. Like at the prison._ "I just..."

He kisses my forehead, and my noisy thoughts go away.

"It's okay," he tells me, and I believe him.

"Come on, man," I say, "let's keep playing Scrabble."

* * *

 

Later, Rick comes in to check on us. We hear him coming, and at the last second I remember to hide the centrefold.

“Boys?”

“Dad. Hey.”

“Hey,” Rick says. “You two okay?”

“Yep.”

“Get ready for bed,” Rick tells us, “don't stay up too late tonight, need your rest.”

“'Kay.”

“Night, Carl.”

“Night.”

“Night, Oliver.”

“Night, sir.”

He leaves again, and I shuffle under the covers. We’re still in the same clothes since the prison, but we don’t talk about it.

"Why're you doing that?" is what I do decide to talk about.

"What am I doing?" Carl asks.

"You're kind of… burrowing."

"Sorry," he grins. "I jus' haven't slept in a bed in a while."

"What about your cot?"

Carl shakes his head. "That's not a real bed. Last real bed I slept in was over a year ago at Hershel's farm..." He trails, but rolls over and gets comfortable anyway.

“Night,” I say.

“Night.” He turns over to me. "I know that Ostentatiousness isn't a real word...” I take his hand. Carl flicks out thumbnails.

“I win,” I whisper.

“Yeah,” he mumbles, sleepy, “guess you do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy reading.


	18. Season 4 ~ Claimed, Part 1: Candy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are escalating...

When I wake up the next day, I tell Carl about the dream I had in the night. “I was in my sixth-grade school play.”

“Romeo and Juliet?” Carl asks, yawning.

I nod.

“When you were supposed to just be an extra,” he goes on, “but the kid who played Romeo got sick and you were his undercover. Penelope was Juliet.”

 I forgot I’d told him about it all, so I let him tell the story.

“And you got the kissing scene and you threw up everywhere,” Carl says.

“ _Everywhere_ , man. Yacked on the stage, over my costume. On Penelope. It was _so_ awful.”

“Tell me again what Penelope did?”

“Nothing,” I say. “She didn’t get mad, didn’t scream at me. She just held my hand and walked me to the nurse’s office.”

Carl smiles. “What a great friend.”

“She was.”

He picks at his finger scab. His arm is bruised, too, from hitting the wall those few days ago when we got here.

“Tell me about the kiss again,” he says when he sees me watching him.

“Yeah, right, so, after it was all over, and we were at home. We were watching a movie. Pat left to go to bed and Penelope told me I was _‘really brave’_ after what happened, and that I deserved a _‘congratulatory endowment’_ —Penelope had this thing about words— and then she kissed me.”

“Romantic,” Carl jokes.

I shrug. “Just kinda happened.”

We sit in quiet. I’m holding his hand because holding his hand seems like a nice thing to do. And the morning goes on quietly. At some point, while I’m downstairs making breakfast with Carl, Michonne asks me from the bathroom to grab something from the clothes she brought back. I bring her a big white T-shirt, and later, while Carl and I are eating together, Michonne enters the kitchen. She peers past the door at us.

“We got the cereal,” Carl tells her, so Michonne comes in with a bowl and spoon, wearing the shirt I got her. Carl starts laughing at it. It’s too big for her, bagging off of her shoulders and torso.

Michonne narrows her eyes. “Do you have something to say about my extremely comfortable and attractive shirt?”

He laughs more, the throaty clicky kind, watching her fold her sleeves and tie a knot at the back to tighten it. “No, no, no,” he replies, “erm, it looks great.”

Michonne grins at me, tells me, “Well, I love it.”

I blush.

“Oh, erm. You missed a...” Carl points to a skipped button, her brown skin behind it. She does it up, taking a seat next to me. I grin at them both.

“Wish we had some soy milk,” Michonne complains at some point while eating — also while, under the table, Carl and I are having a secret foot war that’s really just a foot press. Now though, he stomps his foot down.

“Seriously?” he demands.

I look at him, surprised.

Michonne cocks an eyebrow. “ _Yes,_ seriously!” she argues. “Have you ever tried it?”

“My best friend in third grade was allergic to dairy.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And every day he’d bring this soy stuff to lunch,” Carl goes on. I put my head on the table and smile up at him. He tells us, “I tried it.”

“ _And?_ ” Michonne grins.

“I threw up!”

“Yeah right!”

“Alright, alright,” he relents. “I _almost_ threw up, but I was like...” He makes gaggy retchy noises and we laugh. He tells her, “You’re so gross. I mean, literally, I would rather have powdered milk than to have that stuff again. I would rather have Judith’s formu—"

It all rushes back. It’s like we were on autopilot. Just didn’t think about it. Not now though.

Carl’s chair scrapes loud enough I jump. He stands, mumbling, “I’m gonna go read my book,” while he rushes out of the room. “There’s only a few chapters left.”

The front door bashes open and Michonne and I sit in silence. I rub my spoon, stare at my beat-up, upside down reflection, bunching up my shoulders. Suddenly, Michonne is nudging my sleeve. I look up to her and she sighs.

“If you won’t, then I will,” she says.

I sigh.

“Talk to him,” she says. “I think he’d appreciate it more if it came from you.”

“What do I say?” I ask, lost.

She shrugs. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

* * *

 

In the end, I don’t figure it out at all. Not in words, at least. Like usual, what helps most is not saying anything at all. We sit on the porch swing, like the one in the house yesterday only not broken, and in our silence, we stare out over the dead suburb, watching the Georgian morning heat up the road and air and trees and grass.

He’s looking at the sky right now, and his hair is wobbling in a soft breeze. He’d found a tennis ball at some point, and throws it up, lets me catch it, then catches it himself when I throw it up, too. For a few minutes this continues. To be honest, a part of me is still waiting for him to ask me to leave him alone for a while. I’d get it if he wanted that. But he stays silent, throwing and catching, throwing and catching. The living room window is next to us so we’re careful not to sit too close. But after a while he still takes my hand under the cover the wall gives us, pushing his fingers between mine. He doesn’t say anything, and for a long time neither do I. I can see how miserable he feels. Damn, I feel it, too. I just do. So, no, words aren’t necessary right now. Now we just need to hold each other’s hand in secret for a little longer until the hurt becomes bearable again.

Finally, he whispers, “It’s just feels so messed up, smiling when everyone’s gone — when they’re all dead.”

He’s losing his temper again, so I wait a few seconds to say anything.

“I’d still want you to smile.”

Carl frowns at me. “What?”

“If I died,” I say. “I’d still want you to smile. I’d still wanna know that you’d be okay.”

He frowns. “You’re not gonna die, Oliver.”

I shrug. “I’d still want you to smile.”

Carl nods, looking grateful. He stands up. “C’mon. Think I heard Michonne mention something about another run.”

* * *

 

Unlike yesterday, I don’t manage to convince Michonne to let me come too, so I stay behind with Rick. We get to see them off, at least. Standing in the heat watching them all talk makes my head a little woozy, but I squint through.

“How long do you think you’ll be?” Rick asks.

“Fill a couple bags,” Michonne says. “Shouldn’t be too long.”

Rick pulls out a broken watch head and looks at it. I stare at it.

“Is that... Carol’s?”

He looks at me, taken off guard, then puts a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll tell you in a moment, okay?”

I accept this.

He tells the others, “It’s eight-fifteen now.”

“We’ll be back before noon,” Michonne promises.

Rick nods and turns to Carl. “You follow her lead.” He presents his gun from his holster. “D’you understand?”

Carl hesitates, then takes it, sighing and nodding.

“Hey,” Rick says, and Carl glances up, stuffing the gun into the back of his jeans. “Everythin’ okay?”

“Yeah...” Carl sighs again. “Jus’, hungry.”

“Alright,” Rick says, patting him on the shoulder.

Carl steps over to me and hugs me. I love that. And then they leave. I follow Rick through the utility room and into the living room. He tells me, “Look, I’m going to wait for the others to get back, and then I’ll explain about Carol. They should know, too. Is that okay?”

I watch him, then nod. “Just... is she alive?”

Slowly, he nods, then points upstairs. “Go. Rest. You still got a ways of healin’ to go yet.”

I head for the stairs, telling him, “Yessir.”

“Call me Rick,” he says, and chuckles a little. “Thought, after long enough, it would wear off. For Patrick, too.”

I dip my head, nodding.

“I’m sorry,” Rick says.

“It’s okay.” I smile and look at him. “We’ve all lost people.”

“Yes, we have,” Rick agrees. He walks over to me and puts a hand on my shoulder. “You’re a good kid, Oliver. And so was he. Brought up well with a smart head on your shoulders. I’m glad you joined us. You’re family.”

All I can do is stare at him, overwhelmed, until I pull myself together and nod.

“He’s himself around you – Carl,” Rick adds. “I’ve seen it. He’s comfortable with you. He’s not even like that with Michonne. But, he needs that, I think. And, I think you need that, too.”

He’ll probably never know how good it feels to be told that.

“I told Michonne earlier. I can’t be his father and his best friend. It means a lot to me that you’ve been so good to us, to my boy.”

“Thank you, Rick.”

He pats my shoulder again, then heads upstairs. I stay downstairs for a while, thinking about my dad. He was a medical doctor and representative for some big psychology-oriented organisation. I hardly ever saw him. He had to travel a lot for his work and on the few occasions he was home, Pat and I hardly spoke to him. I don’t know why. For a guy who spoke to people all the time about their problems, he wasn’t very good at talking to me or Patrick, or even Mom sometimes. I don’t think I’ve ever shared as bad a silence with anyone as I used to share with my father. My silences with Daryl were better than my silences with my father. I never thought it was particularly important. I was used to it; being put second and third and fourth after clients and clients and more clients. But over the last few months, Rick’s made me think differently.

Finally, I go upstairs. Rick’s in the bathroom changing his bandages, so I put off changing mine and instead head into the bedroom. I’m about to kick off my shoes, holding the shelf while I do, but I knock something off and have to rush to catch it.

It’s a ukulele.

I grin. I’d never noticed it before. It was right next to the door. Hidden in plain sight. I take it over to the bed, strumming a few cords. I’m a little rusty, but after a few minutes I get my rhythm and the music gives me that _this fits_ feeling again. Music always does that. Makes me fit in my skin. Makes me not feel like I have to stretch my arms and rub my skin off. Right now, my skin fits perfectly.

I hum quietly, and after a while, I’m singing, too.

_‘I was perched outside in the pouring rain,_   
_trying to make myself a sail._   
_Then I’ll float to you, my darling,_   
_with the evening on my tail._

_Although not the most honest means of travel._   
_It gets me there nonetheless._   
_I’m a heartless man at worst, babe,_   
_and a helpless one at best._

_Darling, I’ll bathe your skin,_   
_I’ll even wash your clothes._   
_Just give me some candy, before I go._   
_Oh, darling, I’ll kiss your eyes,_   
_and lay you down on your rug._   
_Just give me some candy,_   
_after my hug._

_Oh, I’m often false explaining,_   
_but to her it plays out all the same._   
_And although I’m left defeated,_   
_it gets held against my name._   
_I know you got plenty to offer, baby,_   
_but I guess I’ve taken quite enough._   
_While I’m some stain there on your bed-sheet,_   
_you’re my diamond in the rough._

_But, darling, I’ll bathe your skin,_   
_I’ll even wash your clothes._   
_Just give me some candy,_   
_after my hug._

_Oh, and I’ll be there waiting for you._   
_Know that I’ll be there waiting for you._   
_Oh, I’ll be there waiting for you...’_

I’m quiet for a while afterward, but my whole body is still thrumming, and since Rick’s in his room now, I go downstairs to get some more bandage. They’re on the kitchen counter. As I turn to leave, I hear a shuffling noise outside. Not walker’s, so I assume it’s Carl and Michonne, returning early because they’ve forgotten something. I almost go and greet them...

“This one’s as good as any.”

...but it’s not. My body turns to rock. _Stranger-Danger_ alarms blares through my skull. I see their figures. Several men’s shadows against the curtains, stepping up onto the porch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy reading.


	19. Season 4 ~ Claimed, Part 2: Damn Shame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And this is where it goes bad...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warning: This one gets dark. Containing non-consensual sexual abuse on a minor. It’s not graphic (I won’t write graphic) just may be disturbing for some readers. Take care, lads, ladettes and ladiosas.

Dread courses through me like venom, silent sirens blaring in my mind. Someone tries the back door. I leap into the wall and flattening my back against it, out of sight of any windows.

"Dammit. It ain't open, Joe."

Someone else tries, shoving their weight against the back door. Others are heading for the front door. It’s not locked and I know they’ll get through easily, and then I’m flying up the staircase and into Rick’s room, my head pounding. The front door is broken open and I flinch.

"Rick," I hiss, watching his eyes flicker around inside his lids. " _Rick._ Wake up."

He startles, about to say my name but I shake my head frantically, shushing him. That's when Rick hears them, too, as someone downstairs shouts and the rest of them laugh. I look at the door. I’d left it open. Someone is coming up the staircase. But the next thing I know, Rick has stuffed his watch into his pocket and rolled off the bed, and in one, large step, he grabs me and flattens us to the wall next to the door.

The stranger walks down the hallway and goes into the office, and when we’re sure he won't hear us, Rick grabs my collar and yanks me under the bed. At the last second, he grabs his book and joins me in silence, catching his breath. I see the water bottle he’s left out and I grunt at it. Rick tried to grab it, but I grab his shirt and shove him back under the bed, just in time for someone to pass the room. We freeze, panicked, mouths open. He’s clutching my wrist. It hurts. But I don’t move. Someone goes into mine and Carl's room. Rick’s wheezing. Someone’s coming — coming into the room. A bead of sweat rolls down my forehead. I watch his boots, stepping over to the bed, the brown leather blood stained and wrinkled, and the thin barrel of his rifle hanging by his ankle as he circles the bed. Rick is shaking; his ring glints out the corner of my eye.

The stranger crosses the room, kicking a stray shirt out of the way before swinging the closet door open. He peers inside, then shuts it and goes to the wardrobe. He swipes the top —I hear it— and a small cloud of dust falls to his feet. Rick looks at Carol’s watch. Eleven in the morning. Michonne said 'before noon'. With only one hour left until then, she and Carl could be back at any moment.

The man walks over, standing right in front of us. I could reach out and touch his boot if I had a death wish. Rick winces. I can't move. I just close my eyes.

 _If I can't see him, then he can't see me._  
_**Your logic is flawed.**_  
 _Shh._  
 _**You're both going to die.**_

Then stranger slumps onto the bed, causing the frame to bash into the back of our heads. Somehow I manage not to scream. My head reels. I cradle it desperately in my hands. Finally I just go limp from the pain, resting my face on the cold wooden floor with itchy dust clumps sticking to my cheek, too tired to care. Just want the pain to stop. Finally, I can open my eyes again. Rick stares at me.

At some point later, another man comes upstairs. Rick’s shoulder shakes against mine.

"Yo! Comfy?"

The man on the bed grunts. "You're wakin' me up, to see if I'm comfortable?"

"I wanna lie down."

"Choose another bed, son of a bitch."

"Them's kids’ beds. I want this one."

"It's claimed."

"I didn't hear it. You're gonna have to lay claim somewhere else."

I shut my eyes again, wishing them away. But they start fighting. The man who’d entered the room first is thrown to the floor, pinned there. They shout and wrestle, and when the second hits the first, he sees us... Rick and I flinch and push ourselves backwards, but it's too late. The man's eyes widen in shock, but the other man wraps his hands around his neck before he can say anything.

"Len... Stop!" His face is turning purple. But Len doesn't stop, until his friend is knocked out. Len pants over him, exhausted, then lets go and stands up.

He laughs. "My bed now, _jack off_.”

This time, when he jumps on the bed, I flatten my head to the floor before it slams into me. It hurts, but nowhere near as bad as it would have. I can't say the same for Rick; he was distracted by the unconscious man in front of us, and both his shoulders and head slam into the floor. I stare at him worriedly, but there’s nothing I can do. Len lets out a loud moan, letting his leg hang over the bed, and eventually, he falls asleep.

Downstairs, there’s banging. The tennis ball. Worry makes my skin crawl. A long time passes and my terror forces me to shrink away from everything, blocking it all out. Rick shuffles past me, tapping me on the shoulder and snapping me back into reality. He motions me to stay where I am, so I do as he says and watch as he climbs out from under the bed, pausing every few moments when Len makes a noise. But eventually, he gets out and crouches beside the bed. A moment passes, until Rick glances at me and motions me to come out. Silently, I do. My head reels. I focusing on breathing. Len is spread across the bed, out cold. I creep to the bedroom door, hearing the guy with the tennis ball walking up the stairs.

_Bonk._   
_Bonk._   
_Bonk!_

When he’s passed the room, Rick leads us out and flattens both of us against the wall of the bedroom that Carl and I have been sleeping in. I catch a glimpse of the man; weathered, white face, grey hair and a rough beard. Rick takes my hand and pulls me back into the little alcove. My machete is on the pillow. Rick shakes his head to tell me not to grab it, and instead pushes me to flatten my spine against the wall on the right, and with a silent nod and my own nod back, he takes the left side.

The banging of the tennis ball comes closer and the man walks into the room. He walks to the archway of the alcove we are in, just out of sight, and I stay paralysed to the wall, holding my breath. I see the fluorescent flash of the tennis ball fly between me and Rick and bounce off the wall next to the window, then propel itself back into the man's hand, which is only inches away from my face.

I shut my eyes when he does it again.

_Don't see us._   
_Don't see us._   
_Please?_

He stops a moment, then turns and walks away. I almost relax. Almost. But then — "I know you're in there, kid. I can see you in the reflection."

I blink, not sure what’s happening. I look around and see the small, circular mirror propped on the window ledge, the stranger’s face looking back at me in it.

“Hello,” he says.

I jerked my head out of his vision.

"Come out now an' I won't kill you. I jus' wanna see who I'm dealin' with." I look at him again and he beckons me out with his fingers. "Come on now, before I'm gonna have to come in there and get you."

**_He doesn't know Rick’s in here..._ **

I look at him, Rick, desperate to know what to do. Rick just stares at me wildly, lost, and I know there’s nothing I can do. Quickly, I take my machete and step out of the alcove and into the main bedroom.

“Easy...” the stranger says, raising his gun. “Easy... No need to be rash, here.” I lower my weapon, hear Rick grunt — he knows he can’t do anything. Not if it’ll save his kid. The stranger’s smile is fake and mocking. I’m shaking, but I stand tall. "What's your name, boy?"

I don’t say anything.

"I _said,_ what's your name?"

"Oliver..."

"Joe," he says. "You got a group, Oliver?" I shake my head but he puts a finger up. " _Ah-ah-ah._ Don't lie to me. I _don't_ tolerate liars. Do you have a group?”

I nod.

Joe smiles. “Where’d they go?”

"Out."

“Back soon?”

I shrug. “Not sure.”

Joe frowns and his head tips back. "Why'd they leave you here all alone?"

I point at the bandage on my temple. Joe eyes it up, then looks at the rest of me — all my bruises and scabs and marks. He asks, "What happened to you?"

I don’t know what to say. At my silence, he tells me to step forward with my hands up, his gun still aimed at the space between my eyes. His face is wide and sharp and bearded. He pats me down, takes my machete and examines it, then gives it back.

He smiles.

“Someone trying to kill you?” he asks, pulling a part of my fringe back to look at the bandage.

"No," I answer. “Not anymore.”

Joe thinks about this for a minute.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “Me and my friends won’t stay long.”

I nod even though it doesn’t sound entirely truthful, but it feels better while he’s talking, like if he keeps at it, I’ll have enough time to think of what to do.

"Come with me," he says, and turns, tossing the tennis ball to the floor and catching it again. When we’re out on the landing, someone downstairs yells, "Claimed!"

"Claimed!" another shout.

"Shut the hell up!" Len growls from the other bedroom. "I'm tryina sleep!"

"There's a woman backed up in here!"

Fast, Len rushes out of the bedroom and lean over the banister. "What?! Is she hot?"

"Don't grab your pecker jus' yet, she ain't here."

My eyes start to water so I blink.

"Then what the hell're you hollering about?" Len orders.

"Found her shirt. Must o' washed it this mornin'."

I left the shirt on the radiator.

“Come with me,” Joe instructs me. “Meet my boys down there. See what they make of you.”

"Shit, Joe, who’s this?" Len says.

Joe grabs my shoulder and slings his arm over me. He smells of ash. The kind you get from cigarettes and weed. "This is Oliver. Gonna show the boys to him."

“You put a claim on him? You know one of them will if not.”

Joe looks at me, curling his mouth. “I don’t got time babysitting some kid I just met. Nah, Oliver here’s gonna try his luck, ain’t you, kiddo?” He looks at Len. “Unless you wanna be the hero, put a claim on him first — show him how it works around here, how to look after his own hide...”

Len smiles meanly. “Well, like you said, bossman. Got no time to babysit. Kid’s just gonna have to try his luck.”

“Shame,” Joe says. He motions me to follow him. “Damn, shame...”

As I pass, Len catches sight of my machete. “I claim that though.”

Joe shoots him a look, then nods. “Not yet, though. Wait if there’s a claim on him.”

“You can’t have it,” I say. “It — It’s mine.”

Joe laughs, like he was proud of me. And I guess I did something right because nobody takes it from me. “There, see?!” Joe exclaims. “Boy’s claimed it already, Len. Can’t claim what’s already claimed, right?” I feel squashed under his arm and struggle to stay on my feet, like I’m back in school, the butt of the joke. Too small and young to get it.

 _If I wait long enough they’ll get bored and go away,_ I think.

I need my inhaler.

We meet another man on the staircase. He’s headed up, and he blinks a few times when he sees us, like he’s not sure he can see things well.

"Who's this?"

"Lou, this is Oliver. Oliver, Lou," Joe introduces. He doesn’t seem to think anything strange or upsetting by how intensely Lou is staring at me. But it upsets me. I’m not sure why. He isn’t hurting me, and he hasn’t done anything wrong, but my eyes are wet.

"You wanna claim?" Joe asks.

Lou wrinkles his nose. "Gotta go take a dump first. I’ll think about it." Only in the same moment, I swear I see Rick move across the bedroom. Nobody else notices him, and soon I’m going downstairs with Joe and Len while Lou goes to the bathroom. My head is aching again, and I hold back coughs while they lead me into the living room.

“You found _a shirt_ ," Joe says. "She could be fifty miles away." There are three other men in the room. All pale skin and brown hair. One’s tall, another is skinny and wears a blue beanie, and another guy is large, balding, and bearded. He has Michonne’s damp shirt slung around his neck like a scarf. Joe turns to me. "But she's gotta come back for you, right?"

I look at him.

"When is she coming back, boy?"

The men are all watching me, quiet now. I stare back, my neck and head hot and sweating, and my blood curdles. "I don't know."

"Claimed!" the big guy says.

I turn to him. I almost yell at him, “It’s _my_ machete!” but I stop short when I see him walking towards me. He grabs my arm. I’m so stunned I just gasp.

“Shit,” the skinny guy says, “I mean, I’m not into... that, but, dammit, don’t spoil him too much. I claim seconds. Just... God, just keep his beanie on. I’ll cover the face with it.”

The others laugh.

“Sick bastard,” one says.

For some reason, in my head, it clicks, what they’ve been talking about. For some reason I didn't catch onto what’s about to happen to me, until now. Nothing like it has ever happened to me before. I’d heard horror stories, and I’d sat through the stranger danger classes in school. But I guess I just didn’t think it really happened. Never could, rather. Because in real life, stuff like this just doesn't happen. Does it?

**_Stupid._ **

I should run.

I should hide.

I should fight.

But I just stand there in the doorway, frozen to the spot, as Dan drags me across the room. I know I can’t choose when I die, and that I have no control over how, but this? I don’t know anything worse — I don’t.

I’m screaming, and they’re laughing. Somebody takes my machete and someone else trips me up, and I grab at them desperately, catching jacket sleeves and trouser legs and door frames and couch arms. Something or someone cuts the left part of my mouth and I can feel blood on my lips, taste it, and Dan pries me through the kitchen and out along the hallway. As he throws me into the utility room, he slams the door behind us, and before I can make for the backdoor, I’m grabbed by the arm and spun around.

I don’t know how to explain what happened to me after that. I know I try to keep my feet still. And I know I cry. And I know he punches me up — I’ve never been punched up before. And then... Then... I ask him to stop. I say no. But he doesn’t listen.

 _You can’t claim what’s already been claimed,_ I think and keep thinking. _You can’t claim a person. People can’t claim people._

He stops sometime later. I’m not really in the room, so I don’t know what’s going on until I realise I’m hearing gunshots. I think they’ve found Rick, too, and everything hurts. Dan jumps up when the utility room door swings open, slamming the wall.

Joe grabs him. "It's Lou! Help us!"

"But I ain't done!"

"Get your dirty ass moving —kid ain't goin' nowhere! He'll still be there when you get back!”

Then a door slams and they aren’t here and neither am I, really. I can’t make my body work for me. It’s like I’m not part of me anymore. There’s another gunshot. I look up, feeling like a broken glass. I’m not sure how long it takes me to stand, or how long it takes me trying to use my inhaler. I fall a lot, and it hurts. All of me. I’m not sure if the pain in my brain is worse than the pain everywhere else anymore. I’m bleeding. Shit, bleeding in bad places. My stomach and face are soaked and sweaty. Somehow, I put on my shirt and pull up my pants and flannel shirt. I stagger to the backdoor. People are still screaming inside. Door’s locked. Try the key. Fingers aren’t working. Use my teeth.

The deck and my face collide with a splat. **_Get away,_** I think. ** _Get away..._** and I do. I run. Not sure where but I know I can't stay here. I have to get away. Suffocating. Running. I get to a train track. Follow it. I run for what feels like hours, years, my legs and chest burning, until it finally becomes too much and I collapse.

I lay there in the dirt and train tracks, and I’m going to die because there are walkers coming. They rush across the tracks at me, pick me up and put me on their knees — this is strange because I thought walkers just eat you, and then I can’t think of anything because I black out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy reading?


	20. Season 4 ~ The Grove, Part 1: Tracks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First lil bit is Carl’s pov, rest, Oliver’s.

"What're we doing?"

“He's alone in there!”

“Dad... Dad..."

“We have to go back, Dad.”

“We have to wait for him.”

"Dad, come one, please?”

“Please!"

...

“I’m sorry. Carl, they got him. I'm so sorry.”

“Come on, Carl. The signs. We have to follow the signs now.”

...

SANCTUARY FOR ALL.  
COMMUNITY FOR ALL.  
THOSE WHO ARRIVE, SURVIVE.  
TERMINUS

* * *

"Oliver?"

"Oliver, sweetie?"

_Don’t talk to me,_ I think/say. _I have to get the pudding._

“What?”

_The pudding!_

"Mika, don't laugh. He's delirious."

"Oliver?”

“It’s okay. Let him rest...”

* * *

 

_Woken up like an animal_   
_Teeth ready for sinking_   
_My mind’s lost in bleak visions_   
_I’ve tried to escape but keep sinking_

_Limbs lost to a dead stake_   
_Skull cage like a prison_   
_And he’s lost faith he’ll ever see again_   
_So may he once thought of me then..._

 

* * *

My eyes open and it’s night-time. My things are all laid out in front of me neatly — inhaler, beanie, and my flannel shirt. I take my inhaler, feeling heavy and achey. I think of yesterday, sit up, and yack into the train tracks. Someone touches my back and I shudder.

“Oliver?”

I shut my eyes, wiping my mouth.

“You’re okay,” Tyreese says.

“Don’t touch me.”

I start crying because he listens to me. Finally, I sit back and look at him. Behind him, Mika and Lizzy stand back, holding hands.

“Are you okay, sweetie?”

It’s Carol, and she’s holding Judith. I wipe a wave of tears, thinking of Carl and Rick and Michonne. The gunshots. The screaming. Rick was found, and Carl and Michonne would’ve gone back, and I just ran away. I don’t talk for the rest of the night. I sit and I stare at the tracks, getting eaten by my silence, made raw and hollow, and eventually, the exhaustion takes over and I pass out again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was Human by Daughter.
> 
> The aftermath of the Claimers is going to take a while to recover from, I'm afraid.
> 
> Happy reading.


	21. Season 4 ~ The Grove, Part 2: Tom and Huck And

The next morning, the warm sun sparkles pink and yellow through the edge of the tree-line, twinkling through the leaves, while I sit in silence on the train tracks with a numb ass and aching arms and legs. My back is hurting, too, and my front, and my up and my down and my upside down and inside out, though, out of everything my temple is probably the worst place of pain. The bandage is gone. The one on my abdomen, too.

I’ve been staring ahead at the tracks, so I don’t expect someone to touch my shoulder. I lash out, and Lizzie jumps back. She apologises, and I don’t look at her. A few yards behind her, Judith is in Carol's arms, drinking formula, and Mika and Tyreese are asleep. Carol watches me.

“Everything okay?”

I don’t say anything, just shrug.

Lizzie leans into my eyesight, puckering to chew the inside of her mouth.

"Are you still hurting?" she asks.

I shut my eyes.

"He’s hurting," Lizzie says.

Then Carol is here, putting Judith in Lizzie’s arms. She sits next to me. She doesn't try to touch me. She just asks, "Where does it hurt, sweetie?"

After a second, I point to my temple.

"Looks sore," Carol says. When I don’t say anything back she says, “We'll fix you up. Your asthma's better now, right?"

I nod.

"We cleaned up your wounds, last night, but your bandages were too dirty to reuse," she tells me. "We don't have anything else yet, but we will." She sighs. "That inhaler. It your last one?"

I nod.

"We'll find a drug store or somewhere soon, get you some more. But in the meantime, try to use as little as possible. Think you can do that?"

Another nod.

"Good." Carol smiles. She taps Lizzie on the shoulder. She was catching a moth, but it gets away. "Sweetie, you wanna help me find some tree sap for Oliver?"

Lizzie nods.

When Carol sees me grimace, she says, "It'll help fight any infection."

Lizzie hands me Judith and they both head off across the tracks and up into the banked woods ahead. To my right, Tyreese is curled up on the train track with Mika's small form huddled close behind him so that their spines are pressed together for warmth. It’s a little nerve-wracking to hold Judith again, but I manage, not rocket science and all, and then I'm hugging her, and she's purring away into my ear.

Tyreese starts mumbling in his sleep, waking Mika up. She sits up and watches him, then gently taps his shoulder. He shudders.

"Ty?"

He gets worse.

Mika pushes him and he sits up, mumbling about Karen, and then he looks at us and calms down. His eyes are wet. I've never seen Tyreese cry before. It's sort of like what I imagine watching a tsunami must feel like to a bird while flying. There isn't anything you can really do but watch and never forget.

“I'm sorry for waking you," Mika says.

"It's alright." Tyreese sighs. "Sorry. Bad dream." He wipes beads of sweat away from his face with his beanie. "Jus' another nightmare."

With my free hand, I grab my own beanie and put it on over my hair, which is so messy it’s almost matted now, and all dirty and sweaty. Then Carol and Lizzie return. Tyreese has a fever and is taken care of first. He cut his arm, back at the prison, and the infection looks pretty bad. She wraps his wound with the reused bandage he was wearing before. Mika sits to my left, picking at weeds that stick out from the tracks. Further down the track, close by, Lizzie is pacing, keeping watch for us with her hand on her knife. I think of my machete, almost reach behind me for it, but I remember it was claimed and stop.

"What do you think? Three days out? Four?" Tyreese asks Carol.

"We haven't seen any of those maps at the crossings... so, I'm not sure."

They talk about the girls but I'm not really listening. A while after their conversation dims down, I ask, "Where are we going?"

"There's a sanctuary," Tyreese answers, "at the end of the tracks. Put signs around for miles. First one we found was outside a suburb."

I look at the floor.

Carol says, “Place. It’s called Terminus.”

She leaves to find more tree sap for me.

“Been following the tracks for a few days, maybe more," Tyreese explains. "I'm not sure. We were just getting going yesterday morning, when we found you. Mika thought you were a walker. I did too. We were going to stop, too, to rest, but... seemed like you were runnin’ from somethin’, so... I carried you, and we kept going until we were somewhere safer."

“You... carried me?”

He nods. “No big. You don’t weight very much.”

I want to ask where Carol went. Why she never came back. But I don’t need to because Tyreese tells me anyway.

"Rick and Carol found another car, that day they went to find medicine," he explains. "Carol stayed behind to look for more supplies, while Rick came back with what they'd found. Carol got back later the next day. But, everything'd already happened. It was too late. The place was burning and we were all gone."

"Her car," I change subject, "is it around? We c—"

Tyreese shakes his head, so I stop.

"How'd she find you and the girls?"

"Ran into us in the woods a couple miles from the prison. Some traveller told us to follow the tracks."

"What happened to him?"

Tyreese looks over his shoulder to the tree Carol is harvesting from. "Died."

Carol is coming back, and she kneels in front of me. "Have you been taking anything for your wounds?"

I nod. "Antibiotics. Pain killers."

"Good." The sticky brown syrup dribbles along her blade. She twists her hand it doesn't drip off. "Lean forward, please?"

Lizzie takes Judith for me, sitting beside me while Mika goes to keep watch, and I do as Carol said, tilting my head and tipping forward. It's okay while she touches her little finger to my cheek bone to keep herself steady, but when her other hand reaches out and holds my neck, I make a noise and push her away.

"Wait," I tell her, and I tell myself to deal with it, but I can't because I'm breathing too fast and my heart is trying to escape my body. Carol sits back, which makes me feel better, so I ask, "Can — Can you do it without touching me, please?"

She does. I stay absolutely still while she lets the sap drip onto the cut on my temple. It hurts, and I have to hold my breath and dig my fingernails into the wood on the tracks, but it's over quickly.

"It'll get the swelling down, too," she says. "Just leave it like that. It's the best we've got."

I sit back when she’s done.

Carol motions to my stomach. "Can you lift your shirt?"

 _No,_ I think, but say, "It's bad."

"I know, I saw it yesterday."

I think about that, and I get all angry and disgusted in myself for too many reasons to think too hard about, then I pull the hem of my shirt up and look away — seeing it once already was enough. Lizzie is looking, leaning past me. She grimaces. I push the shirt down again.

"Don't look,” Carols tells her. “Go and sit with Mika.” Lizzie moans reluctantly. She even tries to get a better look, but Carol says, "Lizzie... you don't wanna see this."

Lizzie gets up and sits nearer her sister. Carol looks back to me, gesturing to my abdomen.

"This is gonna hurt," she says. "You ready?"

"Yeah." I grit my teeth. "Can you, err..."

"I won't touch you."

I sigh, nod. "Let's get it over with."

* * *

 

Later, we're walking along the tracks. Carol and the girls are talking about storytime.

"Does Tom Sawyer have a happy ending? We never got to finish it."

"Tom and Huck, they, uh, stop Injun Jones and his partner and wind up getting all his gold."

"They wind up rich?"

"M-hm, and the widow Douglas adopts Huck."

"Like you adopted us?"

"Yeah,” Carol says, “jus' like the widow Douglas."

And Mika says, "And I'm Huck Finn."

And Lizzie says, "I think you're more like Tom Sawyer."

"Yeah. You're right. You're not even grossed out by dead rabbits."

Lizzie looks at her, then me. "Who do you think you are, Oliver?"

"I'm not sure."

“You can be our friend...”

We keep walking. Lizzie takes my hand, and I let her.

"Forgot you used to read to'em," Tyreese says.

Carol glances back at him, Judith in a baby-carrier on her back. "I did."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy reading.


	22. Season 4 ~ The Grove, Part 3: Smoke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Some mild/blunt (thought) mentions of con-consensual experiences.

Little Ass Kicker’s been staring at me through the small gap in her blanket for hours, jolting around to Carol’s pace. Judith Grimes would be the creepiest baby in the world if it weren’t for how soft and curious her eyes are; they’re like tiny stars – no, not tiny, they’re huge. They’re beautiful. Still, I’ve been counting the seconds and it’s been exactly seventy-one since she last blinked. Seventy-two. Maybe they aren’t stars but rather ice planets, water everywhere, so she doesn’t need to blink at all. Seventy-three.

Mika and Lizzie are holding my hands, and I feel bad for all the times back at the prison when I’d ignore them, think of them as sticky. Now it's me sticking to them. Their hands are like anchors; keeping me on the ground, distracting me from the noise in my head.

_SANCTUARY FOR ALL._   
_COMMUNITY FOR ALL._   
_THOSE WHO ARRIVE, SURVIVE._   
_TERMINUS_

This place sounds pretty good, really. But the slogan. It's stuck in my head for some reason. It's familiar. For miles I've been racking my head for where I’ve heard it.

Judith blinks. Eighty seconds. New record. And I remember where the slogan came from.

“Heard it back at the prison on a radio,” I say. Voice breaks. This is the first thing I’ve said in a while. They all glance at me so I clear my throat and say, “Was a while ago; months.”

"I heard it, too," Tyreese says. Tyreese always talks like he’s either confessing something or he’s warning you about it; but it always sounds careful and reassuring, somehow. “Last week on the medical run.”

"But, it was on a loop when I heard it. The voice was recorded. We couldn’t tell how long it’d been going for."

Carol sighs. "It's all we have."

* * *

 

I’d forgotten how loud the forest is. While we follow the tracks, the trees gossip and the birds flirt and the insects chat. It’s relentless. The sun shine flickers through the leaves and branches like one of those special flashlights police use to dizzy bad guys at night. It makes me light headed so I keep my head turned away, to the west. Georgian weather is weird; searing in day but cold at night. It’s winter, so we might get frost soon, but even if we do we’ll probably still get sunburn.

 ** _You’ve already got sunburn.  
_**_I’ve got sunburn_ on _my sunburn._

"Do you smell that?" Carol asks. It’s burned pork. I picture a barbeque gone wrong, but a hunch tells me it’s more sinister. Both Mika and Lizzie are grimacing.

"Yeah," Tyreese says. We look to the tree-tops. "There's a fire somewhere."

"Must be a big one," Carol says, pivoting on the spot. "It isn't anywhere around here."

_No smoke._

“Any of our people?” I ask – didn’t mean to; slipped out.

Carol gives me a doubtful look. "If it is, they wouldn't have stuck around to wait for walkers to show up." She veers to the tree-line and puts down her bags. “We should stop here. We need to find more water."

"I can do it," Tyreese says. Even I can see that he’s exhausted. We’ve barely been walking three hours but something tells me he’s more exhausted in his head than in his feet. Me, too.

"No," Carol insists. "You need to rest your arm. You too, Oliver. Mika will help me."

Both sisters look confused. Lizzie is stronger, but I guess that’s why Carol asked for Mika instead, to get her used to it. Even so, I feel pretty useless. Right now, I’m the equivalent of a broken clock, but I guess this is a side effect of having a full-grown adult force himself on you...

I wince.

Noisy thoughts are the worst.

* * *

 

Our belongings are ordered in a neat pile just off the track. I’m sitting on the ground by a fallen tree log beside Lizzie, holding Judith. Tyreese is sitting next to me on the log. Lizzie’s bored, so we’re playing I spy. Lizzie’s eyes are shut though, and when she opens them, she looks disappointed.

"I spy," she says. . . "trees and weeds. Tyreese, you’re turn."

"Lizzie,” I sigh, “that's not how you play.”

“Oh.”

I’m about to explain but there’s something moving along the track in the distance. Walker. They see it, too. I pull Judith to me and Tyreese stands up. “You stay here,” we’re told. He takes out his hammer and creeps towards the corpse. Lizzie fidgets.

"He'll be okay. Promise," I tell her. “It's only one.”

"It's not that,” she whispers.

I’m watching the walker and Tyreese while he marches after it. It falls, stuck in the track. Tyreese raises his hammer, but then, before I realise it, Lizzie is running after him.

“ _Lizzie!_ ” I hiss, rushing to my feet. But she’s already there.

"Tyreese!"

Tyreese stops, hammer up, then lowering slowly. He looks at her. The walker snarls from the broken panel its leg is wedged under. Its whole leg is crushed.

I touch Lizzie’s arm with my free hand. “Lizzie, come on—”

"Sometimes we have to kill them,” she talks over me. “I know that. But sometimes we don't."

Tyreese and I stare at her, then look at each other.

“Come on, Lizzie,” he says. “Go back with Oliver.”

“No!”

Tyreese sighs. “Alright... Come on, we should wait for the girls.” He leads the way back to our things. Lizzie takes my hand, and I stop staring at the walker and follow her back. Judith’s watches the walker, too, over my shoulder.

Once back at our things, I keep watch, uncomfortable by the trapped walker no matter how much Lizzie tells me I don’t need to be. But luckily, soon, Carol and Mika return. They sound excited about something. Mika’s talking so fast we can hardly get a word in.

"Calm down, Mika. It's not goin' anywhere," Carol says.

"We found a grave!" Mika exclaims. I grimace. “With a fence and an old tractor and a cottage and a pond and a well and a shack and a—" I’d laugh at her, but it doesn't come out.

"No, a _grove,_ honey. Not a grave," Carol corrects her.

“So, where is it?” Tyreese asks. Carol smiles. . .

“Come on. We’ll show you.”

* * *

 

We spook a small herd of deer on our way. A buck, big as a car, stops right in front of us. Just a few steps and I could touch its nose. It watches us and we watch it, and then it and another doe gallop off into the forest, leaving a small wake of disturbed leaves and dirt. I think of the buck Carl saw when he got shot, how peaceful he said he felt, and I wonder for a moment if it came because of him, but I stop wondering that when I remind myself that I’m an idiot.

We come to a clearing a few minutes later. I think it’s a small one at first, but as we walk, the clearing grows, and a small shack appears, and then a pond, and then, as if it had grown from the soil itself, out sprouts a blooming flower which is actually a house in the middle of a large grove.

My mouth falls open.

As we walk through, Mika asks, "What are these?"

“Pecans.”

They’re everywhere — so many I can’t take a step without standing on three. Mika crouches down and grabs a handful. "Ooh! I love pecans!"

"You know, maybe we could catch our breath here for a while?" Carol asks us, opening the make-shift fence, which is just barbed-wire held up by some rusty, metal poles, and we step through into the house’s front garden.

"We're still going to Terminus, right?" Lizzie asks.

"Jus' stay a day or two," Carol says. "There's a well full of water... uh... well, the fences, they're not big but they're something. We saw deer – they eat pecans. We should be able to kill one to eat."

"We can eat these too, right?" Mika asks.

"You could eat your fill and then sell 'em," Tyreese jokes.

"Look!"

We do. Smoke. A dark, thin tower rising in the north.

"Bet that's what we were smelling," Carol says. "Looks far enough away."

"Wonder how it started," Mika says.

"Maybe lightnin'. Maybe a camp fire," Tyreese answers. "I can patch that fence."

"Probably where the deer are comin' from," Carl protests. "We should leave it, just play it real safe in here."

I don’t know about this, and Lizzie must be able to tell, because she takes my hand again. Mika, too, and together we head to the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy reading.


	23. Season 4 ~ The Grove, Part 4: I Lost Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Again, mild (verbal) mentions of non-consensual experiences.

_And I am more than this frame_   
_I feel hurt and I feel ashamed_   
_I just wish you could feel the same_

_And I am more than these bones_   
_I feel love, I feel alone_   
_I just wish you would come home..._

* * *

 

On the porch, Carol and Tyreese peer through windows. I wait at the foot of the staircase. Lizzie, Mika and Judith are sitting together at the worn, crumbling, garden couch. Tyreese knocks on the screen-door four times. They think one’s in there, just not moving, so they decide to stay close and go slow, room to room.

Judith is staring at me again. I’m starting to find it comforting, like she finds me interesting in a good way.

"Girls, you sit tight,” Carol tells them. “You don't come in until we come out, no matter what you hear.”

“Okay...” They say it at the same time like they’re two people sharing one soul.

Carol looks at me. "Girls’ve got Judith. Take out your gun. You're gonna need to stay on watch."

"Yes, ma'am." I unholster a Glock from the back of my jeans. It’s heavy, and Tyreese let me have it:—“Never was one for pistols anyway.”

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” Mika worries.

“Stay strong, little lady,” Tyreese tells her, and then he and Carol disappear inside the house.

A few moments pass in quiet. Mika turns to me, then gets up and sits with me on the step. Her leggings are torn at the knee and she pokes her finger through it. “Lizzie said you were hurting,” she tells me. “What kind?”

“What?”

She looks at me. “My dad, he used to say people can hurt in the heart, too. Not just in cuts and bruises. He said people hurt in their heart when they see someone they love die...” She’s waiting for me to say something but I don’t. “We saw our mom die. And our dad."

“Are you hurting?” I ask. “In your... err... heart?”

She shrugs. “Guess.”

She’s still waiting for my answer, until she realises that Lizzie is crying. Mika gets up and sits with her. “They’re gonna be okay.”

Lizzie shakes her head. "It's not that."

Mika looks at the fence. Next to it, there are two graves. One is very small and has a tiny pair of shoes hanging from the stick-cross. "Is it that there was a baby?" she asks.

"No," Lizzie replies. "They're gonna find one in there, and they're going to—"

"Stop it, they _aren't_ people!"

Lizzie looks at her, and very calmly, says, "But you're wrong... all of you."

I watch her.

"They aren’t people, Lizzie! They're just dead!" Mika shouts. "Oliver, tell her!"

I’m going to, but then — “Behind you!” — the side door swings open and a walker stumbles over the banister. It hits the ground with a thud and the girls stagger back. Lizzie hits the floor with Judith screaming in her lap. Mika rushes at me, grabbing around my middle to hide her face in my side. My gun is up. I curse, and the first bullet goes through its collar. It’s loud and I flinch. Second bullet hits the ground by the walker’s leg. I panic, pull the trigger, and the walker’s skull bursts over a rotten flower bed.

Lizzie screams. It turns me deaf for a moment. Ears ringing. Then Carol and Tyreese are leaping down from the porch. Carol grabs Lizzie. “Are you okay?”

Tyreese takes Judith from her and carries her onto the porch. I’m all riled up and breathing too quickly and I pace around the porch to avoid letting anyone come near me. Judith is screaming and I can’t hear my own brain for a few minutes until Tyreese coos her calm again.

"Oliver?" I think Carol says. "You did it. You saved them."

Lizzie is still crying.

"Why're you upset Lizzie?" Carol asks. "Were you scared?"

She shakes her head. She’s folding in on herself. She gulps and says, "No."

"Then why're you crying?"

"I don't wanna say..." Then Lizzie’s walking away and slumping onto a bench by a pot of flowers. She cries into her hands. Mika goes over to her and puts a hand on her shoulder.

"Lizzie, I'm sorry I yelled at you."

Carol glances at me and Tyreese, looking confused.

"Jus', look at the flowers like you're supposed to," Mika says. "Count: one, two, three. C'mon. Let's count together. Look at the pink ones over there, you see? One. Two. Three."

* * *

 

Later, in the afternoon, the girls play with a jigsaw to make Lizzie feel better. Tyreese stays with them, and Carol and I go out to collect pecans. There are enough right outside the house, but she still takes us out pretty far; past the fence and through the forest. I think she wants to speak with me privately —know it— but I’m not into it. I don’t say a word. Carol does. She talks about the peaches in jars inside the house’s pantry, how there are _only_ peaches, except in the medicine cupboards, where we found some Ventolin inhalers:— “Which is, what? At least another month’s worth of air, right?”

She’s trying to be nice. I appreciate it, but I don’t want it.

We collect enough pecans inside our supply bag, but Carol still doesn’t turn back. She asks me to come with her to the well and I do. The water looks clear, and the pump works. She pumps while I collect the water in two buckets.

“Glad we found more bandages,” she says. “Think it’s okay to let your temple air out now. But your stomach needed it.”

I don’t say anything even though it does feel better to have all the things wrapped up that need to be. Carol stops pumping, even though the last bucket isn’t quite full yet. I look up at her and frown. She’s watching the water, looking sad.

"That jigsaw earlier,” she tells me. “Saw on the box what it’ll look like when it’s done. Looks kinda like her. I think you two woulda gotten along.” I realise she’s talking about her daughter, Sophia. “Then again, she was the kind of girl you couldn't help but get along with.”

She looks at me suddenly.

“I’m going to tell you a secret,” she says, “something I’ve never told anybody, and never really want to. But I’m going to tell you, because I think it’ll help you. I hope that when I’m done, you’ll then tell me something you don’t want to tell anybody.”

I watch her, waiting.

"My husband used to abuse my daughter... He used to hurt her.” She stops. Her eyes are wet. Then she keeps talking: “And I never did anything to stop it.”

She sits on the well step, like she ran out of energy. I stand there in front of her, hollow.

“Your turn,” she tells me, wiping her face.

“I don’t want to.”

She sighs, then laughs smally. “Well, I guess that’s fine, too.”

I frown at her, thinking that she’s got superpowers. Then I sit with her. I tell her, “I made it out of the prison with Rick and Carl,” because it’s something I don’t want to tell anybody but her. I tell her, “I lost them. Or, well, they... They lost me.”

I think about that.

I look at her and I tell her, “ _I lost me._ ”

She watches me. Her chin shakes.

“People came,” I whisper — whispering because I don’t want the forest to hear me. “I think they killed them.” I look ahead of me, wondering if Carol thinks it’s strange that I’m not crying, wondering if it’s just something that happens to you after something like this, that you really do just lose you. “Someone... made me...” I shake my head, not liking that sentence. “I... I said no. I tried to get him to stop. I... I don’t know how to talk about it.”

“I’m sorry,” Carol says, meaning it.

I shake my head. I even laugh. “It’s what I get, right? Spending so much time thinking about that stuff before, it’s what I get.”

She blinks at me. “What are you talking about?”

“I kissed Carl,” I admit, and I’m crying. “And I’ve kiss other boys, too. More boys than girls.”

“Oh...” She sighs and looks at the floor. “Alright. It’s just... This... You’re wrong. That isn’t how that works.” I’m not sure I hear her right, so I look at her, tears streaking my cheeks. She’s staring at me, shaking her head and thinking hard. “Oliver, I don’t know how to tell you this... but you kissing anybody, boy or girl, has nothing to do with that happened to you. It just happened, and it shouldn’t have, at all. It shouldn’t. But, God, it wasn’t for _anything_ you did, or anything you... _thought_ about. It was just something that happened.”

She hugs me, and I let her, and she waits for me to stop crying.

"None of this is your fault," she tells me. “Some people deserve to feel bad for things, but you are _not_ one of those people, Oliver. You don't deserve to feel it — not this part. It'll kill you if you let it eat away at you like this."

I wipe my eyes dry, feeling weepy and small and in pain. We talk a little more about what happened to me, which makes me feel terrible and better at the same time, and then we talk a little about what happened to Sophia, and Carol, and then we sit and look at the water for long enough that my face doesn’t look like I’ve been crying anymore, and then, when we’re ready, we go back to the house.

* * *

 

By the evening, the fire is lit and Judith is sleeping in the cot beside the couch. I’m curled up with a blanket, and Lizzie and Carol are sitting at the table, sorting through the jigsaw and cracking open pecans.

"You still upset?"

Lizzie looks up from the puzzle to Carol. "Sometimes I don't understand. But I'm trying to, ma'am. I am."

Mika skips into the room, an old doll with long red hair in her hands. "Look what I found! I'm gonna name her... Grazelda Gunderson!" She sits in front of the fire and plays.

Outside, the sky is dim grey, but not dark yet. Inside, the room looks yellow and orange from the lamps and fireplace, like an old photo. I stare into the flame and get hypnotised by it, until Tyreese dawdles into the living room, standing between the flame and me so that my face cools down. My eyes dry up and I rub them. It stings, but in a nice way.

"We got plenty of water,” Tyreese says. “Now all we gotta do is bag us one of them deer and we all set."

"And we'll get one," Carol affirms, cracking another pecan.

Tyreese smiles. He looks so tired he could be drunk.

"Ty?" I ask.

He looks at me, dazed.

"What's wrong?" Mika asks him.

"I'm not used to this," he answers, inhaling.

"Used to what?" Lizzie asks.

"Being in a living room, in a house." His eyebrows are so high his forehead is a ladder.

"Yeah," Mika says, "so relax..."

He does, setting himself into the armchair across from me. He takes off his beanie, and I remember mine, which I pull off, too. There’s a small bloodstain on it, so I wet my thumb and rub it. Doesn’t do much.

Very softly, Mika says, "We should live here."

Carol smiles. Tyreese, too. And I think that’s okay. I think, of everything left in the world, living here with these five would be good enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was Flesh and Bone by Keaton Henson.
> 
> Happy reading.


	24. Season 4 ~ The Grove, Part 5: Lizzie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Mild, unexplicit mentions of masturbation and thoughts of non-consentual experiences.
> 
> I said I'd upload every day and managed to keep to that for... one... day. Had to take care of my mum after her surgery and I had no wifi, so oops. Back now. Sticking to it. Hopefully should get up to chapter 30 today.

“Dammit...”

There’s something wrong with me now. Last night, I fell asleep too late and this morning I woke up too early. Eventually, I wandered into the living room and told Carol I couldn’t sleep. We talked for a while, sat together, but she got sleepy so she told me I could stay in the living room while she slept in with the girls.

“ _Dammit,_ ” I hiss again.

Maybe it’s because Judith’s in the room — asleep, but still there. Or maybe it’s just because I can’t get Dan’s voice out of my head. _“Stop your squirming...”_ Only, thinking about it again makes me rush to the sink and yack up half-digested peaches. When I’m empty, I curl up on the couch again, completely miserable and defeated and feeling gross, like a damp towel that’s been left on the floor for a week — no, like a boy who can’t get hard anymore because of that one time he was molested.

I groan, my body spinning.

Judith must wake up because she’s mumbling.

I wait to feel a little better before I tend to her. For a toddler, Judith doesn’t cry much. She mumbles something that sounds like _cabbage_ over and over and I carry her into the kitchen. She’s hungry. Carol keeps the formula in her supply bag, so I set up as best I can. I’m not very good at it, and I’m only going off what I’ve seen get done before, but Judith doesn’t complain. The first few minutes mainly consist of me trying to figure out how to balance Judith on one arm while I keep the bottle elevated enough that she doesn't suck any air.

Mika shows up after a while. “You and Carol switched.”

“Yeah. Couldn’t sleep.”

Mika sits beside me at the table, shuffling the chair over. "Judith likes you.”

“It’s a good thing I switched then,” I say.

Mika smiles. “Everything works out the way it's supposed to. That’s what my mom used to say.”

I smile politely.

“Are you okay?” Mika asks me.

“Fine.”

“Is it that you’re still hurting?”

“You should get more sleep, Mika. It’s still early.”

She sighs, then leaves me alone again. The fire was put out hours ago and the room got cold quickly. I wrap me and Judith up in a spare blanket like a big cocoon.

* * *

As the day goes on, I spend most of my time with Judith. Tyreese get more water and the girls make breakfast, which is just pecans and peaches, with what was left over from last night. Carol teaches me how to change Judith’s diaper. It’s gross, but easier than I was expecting. By midday, Mika, Lizzie, Judith and I go to the garden, which is across from the shed. It's overgrown and wild now, but fruiting. It’s December, so not much is growing anymore. Just some clementines and beets and plumbs and red currants. Grapes, too, but I avoid those.

Judith wants a clementine, and since I’ve seen her eating solids the last few days, I pick one and peel it, managing with some clever Judith-positioning to use both hands. I let her try it, and she chews, but eventually just spits the mashed-up pulp into my palm.

I grimace. “Thanks, Judy...” Shaking my hand off, I add, "I'm gonna go back in. Wash my hands. Think I saw a record player, too. Wanna see if Carol’ll let me hook it up to the generator."

“‘Kay,” Lizzie says.

“I’ll come in with you,” Mika says, “I know where the records are.”

"You all right on your own?" I ask Lizzie.

"M-hm."

Once inside, I go to the record player in the corner of the living room with Judith propped on my hip. Nonno bought us one once and when Dad was home he’d play jazz all day, and him and Mom used to dance like crazy around the kitchen every morning singing along and laughing together, and when we were really little, if Pat or I caught them, Mom and Dad would scoop us up onto their shoulders and dance with us. I always went on Mom’s and Pat was always on Dad’s, and we’d flail around the house all morning. They never danced together much in the last few years they were alive, though. Actually, they never really did much of anything together in the last few years they were alive.

Mika brings me some phonographs. I fiddle with dials on the player, and at Carol’s permission, hook it up to the power outlet from the generator that we’re using to work the stove. Judith helps me look for a record. Choices are Elvis Presley, Freddy Martin, Diana Shore, and Dennis Day, on and on, but then I see The Ink Spots. They're an old band from the forties and Dad once said that they reminded him of his parents; I didn't know my grandparents on his side well; Grandpa died of cancer when I was four and Grandma, too, when I was a little older. Plus, Dad was never very good at keeping in contact with his family. Not even us, sometimes.

I set it up. The song _Maybe_ comes on first, makes me think of those days when Dad would be getting ready to go back to work for months, when everybody was starting to get all sad about it and him and Mom would spend a lot of time talking but not talking to each other.

The Ink Spots is the type of music so old you can hear the static behind the instruments and voices, but it's still awesome.

_‘Maybe, you'll think of me,_   
_when you are all alone._   
_Maybe the one who is waiting for you,_   
_will prove untrue, then what will you do?_

_Maybe, you'll sit and decide,_   
_wishing that I were near, there._   
_Maybe you'll ask me to come back again,_   
_and maybe I'll say maybe...’_

I hum along, sitting at the dining room table with Judith on my lap, waving her arms around in my hands. Mika brought some fruit in, so we all pick at it. Carol is still helping her finish the jigsaw puzzle, and after a while gets a bucket and pours some water into the kettle to boil.

"I like your voice," Mika tells me. "It's nice."

I smile and stop humming. Judith is still struggling with the concept of swallowing clementine oranges.

"No – Judy, you gotta eat it," I mumble, cupping under her chin, "like this, see?" I show her with another slice, and eventually she gets it and devours every piece I hand her. I grin at her. “God, I wish your brother could see this.”

Judith looks at me, blinks, then hands me a half-eaten clementine slice.

“No thanks,” I mumble, voice breaking a little.

She finishes it.

"Lizzie!"

We all jump while Carol sprints out of the room. I don’t know what’s happening, just that I get up and run across the room after her. I hear the snarling as I get to the door, catching it before it can slam shut.

" GET AWAY FROM IT!" Carol screams.

“No! No.” Lizzie’s standing in front of a walker, her back to it, with her arms up and the walker right behind her.

"RIGH NOW, LIZZIE!" Carol shouts.

“No, no, no, no, no!”

“LIZZIE!”

“No, no, no!”

The walker catches her shoulder. Carol shoves Lizzie away and tackles it, plunging her knife through its forehead.

"NO!" Lizzie screams. "She was playing with me! She wanted a friend!"

"She wanted to kill you!"

"I was gonna lead her away!"

"You could've died!"

"It's the same thing!" Lizzie screams. "It's the same thing! _YOU KILLED HER! YOU KILLED HER! IT'S THE SAME THING!_ "

"Lizzie..."

" _WHAT IF I KILLED YOU!? WHAT IF I KILLED YOU!?_ "

She doubles over crying.

"Lizzie," Carol hisses, saying her name like she doesn’t know what she’ll do, like Lizzie’s an angry animal she doesn’t know how to control. "Lizzie..."

"You don't understand. You don't understand. You don't understand! _YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!_ You didn't have to. You didn't have to!" She’s hyperventilating. "She didn't wanna hurt anybody.” _S_ he’s just screaming and Carol can’t stop her. “YOU KILLED HER! YOU KILLED HER!"

Finally, Lizzie wears herself out and collapses to her knees.

"She was my friend!" she sobs.

Carol looks at me, looking at me like she might cry.

“You don’t understand,” Lizzie whimpers.

 _No..._ I think, w _e don’t._

* * *

 

_I'd still want you to smile. If I died. I'd still want you to smile._

...

“What are you doing?”

"Winning a bet."

"In your dreams!"

"I'm still on... ugh!”

"Spoke too soon, wise guy."

"This might go on a while. Any chance we could, speed this up?"

"Yeah, you're right. We shouldn't be fooling around. We should probably — _call!_ "

"I win... Pay up."

“Fine.”

"Is that really the last _Big Cat_?"

"Oh! Come on!"

"Hey, but you said! ‘Winner's choice’."

"Go ahead, it's yours. You won it. Fair and square."

"Come on... we always share."

"Fork it over."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy reading.


	25. Season 4 ~ The Grove, Part 6: Vegetarian

Lizzie doesn't talk to us for hours. The house is so miserable that Carol decides to take me and Mika hunting, while Tyreese and Judith stay with Lizzie. I have a holster for my Glock now, which Carol found. Mika takes the rifle.

"Is it too heavy?" Carol asks her.

"Nah, I'm good."

Carol smiles out at the forest.

"Fire's still burning," she says.

I can smell it, almost used to it after the time since arriving. I see it, too, when I look up. _"...saw the feeble flame rise and fall, climb the thin tower of smoke, linger at its top a moment, and then..."_

Not knowing the end of the sentence but already knowing the end of the story makes me feel all ick and muddled, like it felt trying to read The Chronicles of Narnia in order of release rather than chronologically.

"Could’ve gone out," Carol adds.

"Nope," Mika replies. "The smoke's black. If it was white, the fire wouldn't be burning anymore."

Carol looks impressed.

"I miss science class," Mika says. "Except when we had to do stuff like cut up planaria worms."

"You gotta do worse than that nowadays, Mika," Carol says.

"I don't gotta."

"You do." Carol stops, so we do, too. "Lizzie's bigger than you and in some ways she's stronger. But you're smarter, and you understand these... _things_. You gotta look out for her. You have to—"

She was about to keep walking, but holds her arms out to stop us. Ahead, is another deer. It grazes, oblivious to us. Mika tries to hand the rifle to me, but Carol stops her.

"No, go ahead. You do it."

Mika looks at me. I shrug — in all honesty, she has a better shot than I do.

“Just like I showed you at the prison,” Carol adds. “Go ahead.”

Reluctantly, Mika takes aim. She’s shaking. Ten seconds pass. Thirty. A minute... and still, no shot. Finally, Mika lowers the rifle. "I can't..."

The deer wanders off into the tree cover. We watch. Carol crosses her arms. She looks at Mika.

"We have peaches," Mika says.

Carol narrows her eyes, glances at me, then walks back to the house. "C'mon, you two."

As we follow, Mika stretches her stride to match mine. I jolt her shoulder, say, “Vegetarian...” and Mika giggles like it was a compliment — to be honest, I’m not sure it wasn’t.

* * *

 

Later, a little before dark, while Carol and Tyreese are out getting water, I stay inside with the girls, and at some point, get the idea to teach Lizzie and Mika to play I spy. However, when I knock on Lizzie’s door, she doesn’t answer, and when I go in, she’s gone. Mika and I look for her, and eventually, we find her heading for the tracks. When we get there, she’s knelt beside the walker stuck in the beams. It growls and shrieks. I take out my gun, except... she’s laughing. Mika suddenly grips my hand. I know why...

Lizzie holds out a little grey mouse from its tail. It dangles there, and she feeds it to the walker. I flinch, hearing tiny bone and flesh crunch and squelch.

"Don't worry," Lizzie tells it. “I'll get you more.”

"Lizzie?" Mika finds her tongue first.

Lizzie looks at us. She waits for us to say something, but I don’t know what to say. I just watch her and the walker.

"When we were giving them names," Mika adds, "we were just _pretending_ things weren't bad. Things _are_ bad. Those things, they're _bad_. _They are._ We _can't_ pretend anymore."

"I'm not pretending," Lizzie says. "You were. _I know..._ I can hear them."

 _No,_ I think. _This is that thing, isn’t it? That thing when some people aren’t well, and they need a doctor and someone to talk to and maybe some pills if the things in their head upsets them enough._

Carefully, I reach down to help Lizzie stand, but again, Mika yells at her.

"They wanna kill you!"

Lizzie shakes her head. "They just want me to change,” she says. “Make me be like them. Maybe I should change..."

“Stop it!”

Lizzie ignores her. She says, “I can make you all understand,” and as she reaches out for the walker, I snatch her hand and yanking her back. “No!” she screams.

"Lizzie!" Mika barks.

Somewhere there is rustling, and while I struggle to hold Lizzie still, I manage to look around and see dead bodies coming for us. They’re burned, from the fire. One, three, seven.

“Lizzie, they’re coming!”

“Run!” I yell, and they do. The walkers chase us, smoke fizzling from their charred skin and clothes. I can smell them — like burned, rotten bacon. Another walker pushes through a bush beside me and I dodge it. There’s a scream, and Lizzie’s being yanked back by her sweater. By some divine intervention, I shoot it through the skull. We run until we can see the house. Lizzie climbs through the barbed fence, but as Mika follows, she snags her leggings and stumbles.

“Help me!”

“I got you! I got you!” But I don't. A walker grabs me by the back of my shirt and I twist away from teeth. I aim, fire, miss, and another walker snatches me and I’m suddenly a row boat getting swamped. The girls are screaming. My foot comes up, connecting with a rotten face, then I aim again and after two shots, I’m free.

I shoot the walker on Mika and it stumbles, allowing Lizzie to pull her inside the fence. She reaches out for me, then shouts, “Watch out!” and I twist around to a wide-open mouth coming at me. My arm comes up on reflex, catching under its chin. I pull my gun up to its temple and pull the trigger, but nothing fires, and I think I’m going to die until I hear a gunshot. It rings my brain and I collapse under the walker’s weight, its exploded skull splattering my face.

"Get behind us!"

Carol is here. Tyreese, too. I shove the walker off, crying out, then clamber to my feet and scramble through the fence. Tyreese takes my shoulders and I shove him off, feeling sick, telling him I’m fine, and then he’s handing me a magazine and I load my Glock — shoot, shoot, _shoot..._ Walkers drop like rocks. The noise is deafening. Soon, they’re thinning out, until finally the last walker goes down and the grove rings in quiet. We all stand here, panting and rigid and staring out over the dead.

Lizzie bursts into tears.

"It's okay.” Carol holds her. “You did it.”

Mika touches my hand. I flinch, then tangle our fingers. After a moment, something stings, and then I realise my shirt is wet — soaking red. Carefully, I lift the hem of my shirt. Mika gasps. There’s so much blood. I don’t know if I’ve ever bled this much. I try to wipe it away but more trickles down faster. My hands drip, and someone says my name and I look up and Carol is talking but I’m not hearing her and then my eyes aren’t working or my legs or my fingers and my gun is on the ground and then I am, too.

* * *

 

The next time I open my eyes, I’m lying on the couch and it’s night-time. A candle is lit on the coffee table, the burning fire behind it. Carol is kneeling beside me on the floor, Judith is in her cot across from the couch, and Tyreese is asleep in the armchair.

Carol notices me.

“Hey,” she whispers. “How’re you feeling?”

“Where — Where are the girls?”

“Sleeping. They’re okay.”

I can smell the burning walkers outside. There are things wrapped around my stomach and head — not bandages, but torn-up shirts. It hurts when I breathe deeply. I must look like a mess, with a cut up abdomen, mouth, and temple all at the same time.

Carol leans over, reaches out, but I push her hands away.

"Oliver..."

“I...” I gag. “I'm... I'm gonna yack."

She rushes across the room and grabs a bucket, tossing the water out into the sink, then all but flings it at me. I snatch it and throw the whole garden up into it. Carol takes my shoulder and I throw up more, until it’s just bile.

“Stop!” I beg. “Don’t touch me — _hurrkk!—_ Don’t.”

"I’m sorry. I won’t I won’t. I'm not gonna hurt you. I'd never hurt you."

I take deep breaths.

“You're okay, sweetie.”

I lie back, exhausted, wiping my mouth with my wrist. I don’t know where my shirt went. Carol takes the bucket away. Tyreese is awake now, too. I don’t look at him, feeling embarrassed and small and weak.

“You're okay,” I’m told by him.

And I say, "I know. I know."

“Sweetie...” Carol is back. “Look at me.”

I do. And I cringe. “God, you gave me one job, and I...” I take a breath. “I messed it up. I messed up so hard."

“They're kids.” She shrugs. “They're gonna run off. It's not your fault."

I sigh and shake my head, covering my face with my arm.

"Jesus,” Carol says, “if you think this is bad I’m glad you weren’t around back when Carl used to run off without us. _‘Stay in the house’. ‘Stay in the house’_. Nope. Not him."

I laugh. I don’t know what my face is doing but I know I have to hold back my tears.

“N’the last few months, if he was ever laughing, it was with you.” Carol tilts her head, smiles. “Get some rest, okay?”

I sniff. “Okay.”

* * *

 

Later, I wake up and Lizzie and Mika are sitting at the table with the jigsaw, and Tyreese is asleep again. Carol gives me a new shirt. It’s baggy, like an old pirate’s shirt; I have to tuck the hems in and pull the collar up when it falls down my shoulder.

I sit at the table and help Mika with the jigsaw. Lizzie hasn’t said anything to me, or anyone, I don’t think. Carol gives me a worried look. I look away, thinking I should tell her what I saw today. I think of Mika and her plenary worms, figuring the walkers are just Lizzie’s type of plenary worm, and that she learned today that it’s not okay to play with them, perhaps, so I keep my mouth shut and find where this corner piece goes.

Lizzie must know we’re thinking of her, because after a while, she says, "I had to help stop them."

"Do you understand what they are now?" Carol asks.

"I know. I know what I have to do now," she says. " _I know._ "

“It's ugly,” Carol says, “and it's scary. And it does _change_ you... That's how we get to be here. That's... the cost. That's growing up now."

"I don't wanna hurt anyone," Mika says, Grazelda Gunderson in her lap, "I don't wanna be mean."

"You have to be sometimes," Lizzie replies, "but just sometimes."

Just then, Tyreese starts mumbling in his sleep. We know not to wake him.

"You know," Carol says, "we have a lot of pecans here."

"Tonne," Lizzie says.

"You getting sick of them yet?"

"Nope," Mika grins.

"I am," I say.

"C'mon, I got an idea," Carol says, and a few minutes later, we're in the kitchen cracking open as many pecans as we can fit onto the baking tray. Lizzie finds the nut-cracker difficult and keeps rocketing pecan shards through the kitchen. It makes us laugh.

"I used to make these with my grandma when I was little," Carol tells us while I search for the edible parts of an exploded pecan. Mika dips them into the sugar and cinnamon, then puts them on the tray.

"They smell good," she says.

"There you go," Carol praises us. "All right. I think you guys are ready to start doin' the cooking around here." She takes the tray to the oven, glancing at us. "Who wants to put them in?"

The girls leap from their stools, and once they’re done, for a while, as we wait for the pecans to bake, I teach them to play I spy, and the game goes on quietly until the pecans are ready and we pause the game on something beginning with C.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy reading.


	26. Season 4 ~ The Grove, Part 7: Familiar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Checking in with Carl & co.

Every day, we wake up, cold and hungry. Dad or Michonne go check any snares they set up the night before, then come back with what they caught, which is usually nothing. We ration our food, then keep following the train tracks to Terminus.

Today, Dad leaves the track at a crossroad.

“What’re you thinkin’?” Michonne asks.

"It's getting colder,” he says. “We should find a store or something — get some warmer clothes.”

I haven’t stopped shivering in two days. Still, when Dad looks at me for my input, I force myself to be still. I'm not angry at him anymore, I’ll admit. I'm just... _angry_. Michonne keeps handing me chocolate bars, which helps.

They lead the way down the street. I linger a moment, watching them. After so long, I don’t know if I can leave the tracks. I’m afraid that if I do, I won’t want to come back to them. Except, Michonne is waiting for me, beckoning me to hurry, so I step off and follow her.

Dad leads us through a small city I assume is called Macon, by the store names: _Macon Bakery; Macon Dentist; Macon Millionhairs._ We stop first at _Macon’s Mercenary General Store_. Without even entering, we know it's been picked dry, so we move on. There’s another store, few blocks down: _Macon Outdoor Store._ Its café has been looted but the clothing section looks untouched.

Dad throws a couple stones into the store and we wait outside, but the building remains silent, so we go in. Dad finds bandages and changes his. Michonne takes me to the shoe section. She picks out a matching pair of sneakers.

“I don’t need shoes.”

She glares at me. I just walk away and check the snack-stands at the tills. Some rats scurry away under a counter and I pick through mints and gums, some breakfast bars, and boiled candy. No Big Cat candy bars or M&M's.

“Carl...”

I look over my shoulder at Michonne, who is holding up a dark blue hoodie. Dad’s watching me. I ignore him and join her. She hands me the hoodie.

"Here," she says, without looking at me, instead looking through women’s waistcoats. I take the hoodie and put it on. Michonne looks at me, nodding. “Suits you.” She steps forward, takes off my hat, and brushes my hair with her fingers. I let her because I enjoy it, even though I don’t look like I do. She resits my hat again and grins. “Perfect.”

I snort, then wait around a bit.

She pulls a brown jacket off a mannequin and puts it on over her shirt. She turns to me, poses. “Look good?”

I shrug.

She looks offended.

“You look great,” I tell her.

Michonne snickers. “Really aren’t the stereotype, are you?”

I shrug again. “Guess not.” I told her about Oliver at some point. I don’t remember when. It just came up.

She watches me, then, quietly, tells me, “Your dad wouldn’t mind, you know, if you told him.”

I shrug. “Not like I ever need to now.”

Michonne sighs, then nods and does something she’s never done to me before — she steps forward, tugs back my hat, and kisses the top of my head. I get this feeling like I’m going to cry, but I let her hold me until it’s safe to pull away and walk away.

I lead the way outside while they chat behind me.

"What did you get?"

"Some string for the perimeter fences,” Dad tells her. “Thought we'd start sleeping a little off the track – we'll have more cover in the trees at night. Got some matches, torches, batteries."

“Here, some socks and underwear.”

I almost hear my dad smile.

Eventually, we find our way back to the tracks. It doesn’t feel good to step back onto it, just more familiar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit from a few years after posting this chapter first time: I edited in the Millionhairs Salon because near where I live there’s a salon called that and it’s dumb and I love it. There’s also a To Dye For Hair Salon and it’s so stupid ugh good shiiit
> 
> Happy reading.


	27. Season 4 ~ The Grove, Part 8: Mika, Open Your Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back with Oliver in the goriest chapter of his life yet...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Gore. Likeohboyawholebunch.

The next morning, Carol and Tyreese go out and remove the bodies. Since we’re staying a while, Tyreese doesn’t want their smell sticking around. I’m outside, by the shack, sitting in the rusty, old tractor, while the girls play together on a blanket.

“Can you drive?” Mika asks me.

“Yeah,” I lie. “Sort of.”

She gives me a prove it look, so I pretend to put the tractor in gear, then I act out a far-too-slow-yet-overly-enthusiastic tractor crash, and catapult myself from my seat, climbing over the hood, and collapsing gently beside them in a series of grunts and splutters and groans. I pretend I’m dead; eyes rolled back, tongue hung over the side of my mouth.

“Oliver!” Mika complains. “We know you’re alive.”

Lizzie pokes me in the stomach. It tickles, and also hurts, so I act out a dramatic revival and thank them both for bringing me back to life. They die laughing. When they settle, I ask Mika, "What were you spying? Last night, what did you spy?"

Mika pushes the braid Carol did earlier over her shoulder. "Oh. I don’t think you can see them now.” She looks up. I do, too.

"Constellations?” Lizzie asks.

"Yeah!"

"Do you like stars?" I ask.

“She’s crazy about them,” Lizzie says for her.

"Which is your favourite?" I ask, careful not to move too much because I’m hurting a little.

"I like Orion, Pegasus... and Draco _the Dragon_ — he was the monster with all the heads that Hercules turned to stone by showing it Medusa's head."

“I like Casseopia the up-side down queen,” Lizzie says. “I love that story.”

“Why?” Mika asks. “It’s tragic. She was gonna give up her own daughter to a sea monster.” I try to look like I know Greek Mythology better than I really do. "What's your favourite?" she asks me.

I shrug. "Never really thought about it. I don’t know stars well, just the North Star.”

She looks up like she’s trying to find it. She points. "Ooh, look! Venus.”

I frown and look up. "In the day?"

Mika points just above the tree line. "There..."

I search for it, squinting. I think I can make it out, _barely_. And only if I catch it in my eyelashes. Even so, it’s just a faint pin prick hidden in plain sight. I think about space and wonder if there are walkers up there, on those space stations, or if they weren’t infected and instead are stuck up there watching down on us until their supplies run out. I shiver, deciding not to think about that.

“Venus isn’t a star,” Lizzie says, messing with her knife — it’s something she’s not really supposed to do, but she looks busy cutting up clumps of dirt so I leave her to it.

Mika stares at the sky. "I wish I was a star."

She seems a little sad, so I say, “You want some pecans?”

They both nod.

I just have to grab them from the ground around us.

“Could we eat them with some sugar? And peaches?” Lizzie asks.

“Sure,” I say, and get up. I head into the house. Grazelda Gunderson is by the fireplace. I have to look for a spoon to scoop the sugar in the jar first, but they’re all dirty so I take a few minutes to washing up. _All_ of it. I half expect the girls to come in and ask why I’m taking so long, but they don’t, and I’m all set up and ready to take everything outside when I realise I’m still not wearing my beanie. I go find it. I can see when I bend over the bed that it’s slipped down the side, so I try to reach it, but my hand is too thick so I pull the bed back. As I stretch out to grab it, my hand nudges a shoebox, and it squeaks.

“Eh!”

I leap back, clutching my beanie to my chest. Eventually, and very carefully, I take the box. Only, it’s not fixed shut, so the lid slips open and three, small, skinny mice topple out onto the bed. I grunt and jump back, then quickly shoo them off the sheets. They scurry across the floor and disappear into a hole along the skirt-board. I stare, and feel a hard shiver come over me all at once, and then I’m angry. _Really_ angry. Lizzie’s cut her last cord now. I’m done sticking up for her. I jump across the bed, fuming, shoving my hat on while I snatch the cup of sugar and barge out of the house. Pecans crack under my boots, like mice skulls in walker mouths, and I start watching my feet so I don’t step on them. Except I look up when I hear some strange strangle noise. What I see is odd. Judith is looking at something — Mika, who is laying down, holding onto Lizzie’s shoulder, as if she’s trying to push her away —Lizzie has her back to me, bent over Mika like she’s trying to button up her shirt for her.

I see the blood. I hear Mika choking, and Lizzie, grunting, saying things:—“Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing...”

I drop the sugar. As it thuds to the ground, Lizzie startles and looks at me. There’s blood on her faced. I don't feel my body or what it is doing, but I see it from very far away. I shove Lizzie aside. I pull Mika onto my lap and she’s grabbing for me, her body open. There’s so much blood. So much it pools and spills out of her and over my hands. Some part of intestine. Something else, lumpy and wet and leaking. Lizzie is talking to me but I can't hear anything. Mika’s eyes are scrunched closed. She grips my sleeve. I try to put her back together, like it might work, like she’s not a little girl spread across the ground but the jigsaw piece inside the house.

“You’re gonna be okay,” I tell her. She looks at me. I keep talking. “It's okay. Mika, listen — listen to me. Listen — to my voice.”

She shudders. I wipe blood desperately, moaning. “No, no, no, I don’t know what to do.”

And then her eyes close and it’s like she isn’t there anymore. I stare, very still and quiet. I whisper, “Mika, open your eyes...” but she doesn’t. Her hand falls from my sleeve and her body is so heavy and small. I know she’s dead. I don’t know why people look small when they die.

"What did you do?" I ask. I don’t now how my voice sounds, but when I look up at Lizzie, she looks worried, wringing her hands.

"I didn't hurt her brain,” she says.

I sniff and try to wipe my face. “Lizzie, she’s dead. You killed her.” I don’t think I say it right, because Lizzie looks like she didn’t understand me. I touch Mika’s cheek, wet with blood. She’s so cold, already.

"Don't be sad, Oliver. Please don't be sad. It's better now. I wanted her to be alright, and — and she will be, soon. I promise. You’ll see, I promise! We all change. We all change...” Lizzie stops talking. I know why. I’d seen them coming. Carol and Tyreese. When they see us, they break into a run.

Lizzie braces herself, knife in hand, waiting politely. I don't do anything. I _can't_ do anything. Carol and Ty stop a few feet away.

"Don't worry. She'll come back. I didn't hurt her brain."

Silence hangs in the grove. Finally, Carol steps toward us, for Lizzie. But Lizzie drops her knife and aims her gun at them.

"Nonono! We have to wait! I need to show you! You'll see! You'll _finally_ get it! We have to wait."

"Lizzie," Tyreese tries, voice shaking. "Put the gun down."

"I jus' want us to wait!”

"We can wait," Carol gasps. "We can wait. You jus'... gimme the gun. We can wait, I swear."

Lizzie is shaking. She looks at me. Quickly, I pull my lips apart into what I hope will resemble a smile. Lizzie turns back to Carol and hands her gun over.

"You all should take Judith, back," Carol suggests, like she’s closing in on herself. "It's not safe for her."

"But, Judith can change, too," Lizzie explains, looking over her shoulder to her. Judith hasn’t made a sound. She looks uncomfortable, like she doesn’t like the colour red. "I was jus' about to—"

"She can't even walk yet,” Carol grimaces.

"Yeah." Lizzie shrugs, finding that funny. "You're right."

"So, you three take Judith back to the house, and we'll have lunch," Carol sings, "and I'll just... tie Mika up. You know, just so she won't go anywhere."

I look at Tyreese and he gives me this tiny nod.

"Promise that's what you'll do?" Lizzie asks.

"Mm-hm. Promise. I'll use her shoe laces."

Carol is smiling and it’s crumbling. Lizzie does as she’s told. Tyreese takes Judith, and gestures me to get up. "Let's, uh... let's go."

Mika’s blood is sticky and cracking between my fingers, in my eyelashes, on my cheek and mouth. I don’t feel well. After long enough, just before we get to the house, I break away from them.

"Oliver?" Lizzie asks.

I try to be nonchalant. "Go ahead. I'll... I'll be a minute." There’s bile rising in my throat while Tyreese nods and takes the girls inside. I force myself to stay together as I walk around the garden and find myself by the fence, but I fall apart after that. I try to hold onto something and cut up my hand on the barbed wire. I stumble to my hands and knees, throwing up into the ground, until finally, I collapse from horror and exhaustion.

I can feel pecans and twigs and vomit against my face, too exhausted to move. I curl up, wheezing, and even when I hear something not far away I don’t try to run away. It's a walker. Only it’s not. It’s a buck. _The_ buck, from when we got here. _Huge._ It stands there watching me, great antlers towering above its head.

I stare at it, tense and jolty as I breath, still retching. I let it stay. I _want_ it to stay, but it doesn’t and I'm almost unconscious when I feel something touch my shoulder, too exhausted to react.

"Oliver?"

Carol sounds very far away. I’m only sure of her when she pulls me over to look at her. I feel like I’m sinking. I don’t want to be real.

"Oliver, c'mon, it's not safe out here."

I struggle to push myself up, wiping my mouth on my arm, hiccupping as another wave of crying comes.

"Did you do it?” I moan. “Did you put her down?"

She nods. I look Carol in the eyes. I want her to make me feel better like she always does, but she’s broken, so I curl into her and cry, and she rocks me in her arms like a baby. I don't want her to stop. I don't have the energy to pretend I’m not breaking anymore, too, so I cry, and Carol cries, and together we cry and cry and cry, and even when we are done and drained and empty, it is not over. It will never be over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy(ish) reading.


	28. Season 4 ~ The Grove, Part 9: Hidden in Plain Sight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, the last chapter at the grove.

_Serpents in my mind_  
Looking for your crime.  
When everything changes  
There's no more time

_You’ve got a knife, well I’ve got a gun_

_I was lost in the world_  
You wanted me to run and I'd climb instead  
Searching for the answers I will never find  
But that's okay, I know what I'm doing this time

 _Serpents in my mind_  
Trying to find your crimes  
Everything changes in time...

In the bathroom, Carol helps me clean up.

“Look up at me, please.”

I don’t. Instead, gently, she lifts my chin. I shut my eyes while she wipes blood away.

“Hands, please?” She sounds old. She pulls my hands from the sink herself. The barb cuts sting when she cleans them. I wince. She apologises. Then apologizes again. “I'm so sorry.”

I don’t know how to look at her face.

Tyreese comes into the bathroom, looking tired and holding Judith. “I gotta talk to you.”

“Where’s Lizzie?” Carol asks.

“In her bedroom. Took away her weapons." It’s clear by the way he looks between us that he wants to be alone with Carol to speak, so I leave the bathroom.

Lizzie is where Ty said she was, sitting cross-legged on our bed with the empty shoebox rested on her lap. The blood has been cleaned off her hands and face, but it still stains the hems of her sleeves.

I sit next to her carefully.

“Think Mika must’ve set them free, before...”

I don’t say anything, just stare at the box.

“I was gonna give them all to her, when she wakes up. She’ll go hungry otherwise." “She looks at me. “Ty says we’ll find something else."

I overhear Carol and Tyreese talking, catching sentences like, "We can't sleep with her and Judith under the same roof," and "she can't be around other people," and, "this is how she is... it was already there."

Lizzie doesn’t seem to hear them. She’s looking at me.

"I never had a friend other than Mika,” she says. “I know how they feel. I can understand them.” Something must happen in my face when she says this, because Lizzie starts to cry. "I don't want you to be mad at me. Oliver, please don't be mad at me?"

I don’t know what to say. There’s something inside of me, like a hurricane, and I start to cry, too. And then I pull her to me and hold her.

We stay like this for a long time. It seems to make her feel better, but I am sinking, down down down through the bed and floor-boards and foundations, until finallytoosoon, someone knocks on the door.

“Oliver,” Carol says, and I have this terrible feeling in my stomach.

"Is she awake yet?" Lizzie asks.

"Not yet." Carol clears her throat. "But, I was thinkin' you and me can pick some flowers for her."

Lizzie nods. She gets up and Carol tucks her under her arm, and the three of us leave the bedroom. Tyreese catches my arm as I’m about to follow them out of the house. He looks at me very seriously. I look at the floor.

"Oliver..."

I glance at him. He lets go of me and watches Carol and Lizzie go. I go to the window and watch them talk together among the wildflowers. Judith starts crying and Tyreese goes to coo to her. Lizzie’s crying.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

Tyreese doesn’t answer me, so I look out the window. Carol’s holding a gun to Lizzie’s head. I feel my gut drop and I’m rushing for the door, but Tyreese is there to stop me.

“No, Oliver.”

“Let me through, man! Let me through!”

He doesn’t and I scream at him. I hit him. He just stands there and takes it. I beg. I collapse at his feet and plead for him to let me out, to stop her, and then silence takes me over, hanging in the air like poison. I refuse to breath it. Even Judith is silent now. Beth used to say she could sense people’s moods. I close my eyes. Have to. Can’t stand it.

I flinch at the shot.

It was hidden in plain sight, this whole time, just like the ukulele in the house, and Venus the pin prick planet, and Lizzie... I should have noticed.

* * *

 

I dream I’m in a forest, with Carl, except he’s a buck, with big black eyes and antlers so large they brush treetops. There’s a river, and an island, and swimming butterflies. Under the water, the world is up-side down, and Carl isn’t here anymore. I’d left him behind. I try to go back to the surface. I swim and I swim, but I run out of air, and I drown.

When I wake up, I hear digging outside. I sit up and put my feet on the floor, feeling weak and ill. I go out onto the decking, lean over the banister, picking at the white paint peeling off and watch it fall down to the dead flower bed.

Carol and Tyreese are digging graves. Lizzie and Mika are wrapped in two, blood-stained, white sheets. I sit on the porch steps and watch them, and soon, they’re in the ground and buried. The grove is quiet. Carol lays wild flowers down on their graves and Tyreese puts away the shovels. None of us say anything. We just look at the graves and the flowers until we each decide to leave. Tyreese goes in first, then Carol after a while longer. I remain sitting cross-legged between the two small mounds of earth. I think about when my grandmother died of cancer. I was seven. In the years after, when we’d visit Italy, we would take flowers to her grave. My mom would kiss her fingers and then she would press them against the dirt.

I do the same thing.

First Mika’s grave, then Lizzie’s.

* * *

 

Nobody’s sleeping tonight. Carol and Tyreese sit at the table with the unfinished jigsaw puzzle sprawled between them. I sit on the couch, staring at Grazelda Gunderson and the unlit fire. We don’t talk or move for hours, until, at some point in the silence, Carol pushes her gun across the table.

"I killed Karen and David," she says. "I had to stop the illness from breaking out. I had to stop other people from dying. It wasn't Lizzie. It wasn't a stranger... Tyreese, it was me." She says all this in a tight, high voice.

I watch her, and Tyreese. He shifts in his seat, like he’ll throw the table across the room.

"Do what you have to do," Carol says.

“Guys?” I whisper, panicking.

“Oliver,” Tyreese cuts me off. “Go to your room.”

“What — no.”

“Take Judith,” he growls.

I can’t see her face but Carol is shaking.

I say again, “No!”

Tyreese shuts his eyes.

Very slowly, he asks, "Did she know what was happening? Was she scared?"

Carol shakes her head.

"It was quick?" Tyreese adds, tears falling.

"Yes."

He looks down at his hands and wrings them out.

"Do what you have to do," Carol says.

He just stares at her, sweating. And then he tells her, "I forgive you."

Carol inhales, like it’s the first time she ever has.

"I'm never gonna forget," he says, voice low and raspy. "It happened. You did it. You feel it, I _know_ you do. It's a part of you now. Me too. But... I forgive you."

"Thank you."

Tyreese tuns stiffly to talk to both of us. "We don't need to stay here," he says. "We can't stay here."

* * *

 

We leave at first light. I carry Judith on my back in her travel sack and Carol and Tyreese carry the bags between them, and as we stand by the door, Carol passes me Lizzie's knife.

“I don't want it.”

“You need it,” she says. “Take it.” She clips it by its sheath onto my belt, opposite my gun. "C'mon... Let’s go."

I was looking at Grazelda Gunderson, still left by the inglenook. And then we leave. Some burnt corpses still litter the ground by the fence. As we pass, we don't look back, just leave the grove and all its ghosts behind.

Lizzie said we all change, and it's true, but what do you do when you don’t like what you can feel changing inside of you? Carl used to tell me that he was a monster. Am I? Can I be a monster who makes good decisions? Can I be both? I told him he could be two things at once. I told him that. So, maybe, I can, too. Maybe I can be a monster but I can be me, too — doing what I have to do, with Carol, and Tyreese, and Judith. Maybe I can stay me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kinda hate dream sequences.
> 
> The song playing throughout was Serpents by Sharon Van Etten.
> 
> Happy reading.


	29. Season 4 ~ A, Part 1: The Claimers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carl's brain again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Like before, some non-con, but it's mild and not explicit like always.

Terminus is three miles away. It’s taken us a longer time to get there than we thought. Things kept getting in the way, like the tunnel with the a message on the wall, so sun-washed and craggy that we couldn't read it. Michonne was sure she could see the word _Glenn_ in it, but I wasn't convinced and neither was Dad; it looked more like _Gone_. I knew we should have gone straight through, but, of course, Dad wouldn't allow it. It took almost a whole day out of our journey going around it because the track turned underground, and we lost it, and there was a storm, so we laid low until we could figure out where we were again. Then there was a man who I thought I could save, but I couldn’t, and he was eaten, and we ran and hid in an old, useless, blue truck parked and abandoned in the middle of a road. Inside, it smells of rot and blood and socks.

I learned something last night.

Something bad.

They found us, the men from the suburb — the men who took Oliver away. "Oh, deary _me!_ You screwed up asshole! You hear me? _You screwed up!_ " I woke up and there was a man outside my door, at the window. I didn’t know him, but he looked like he knew me. He laughed at me — the truck windows rattled. "Restitution,” the leader said. “Balancing of the _whole_ damn universe. Shit!" He had a gun to Dad's temple. "And I was thinkin' of turnin' in for the night on new years eve!"

The guy at my window tapped his blade against the glass and said, "Claimed."

"Now who's gonna count down the ball dropper with me? _Ten_ Mississippi. _Nine_ Mississippi. _Eight_ Missis—"

"Joe!"

I saw his black waist coat, those angel wings on the shoulder-blades. It was Daryl. He tried to stop them. He tried to reason. "These people, you're gonna let them go. These're good people."

"Now, I think Lou would disagree with you on that," Joe said. "I'll of course have to speak for him and all, 'cause your friend here, strangled him in a bathroom."

I must have done something to catch Joe’s attention, because he glanced at me and squinted, then laughed.

"Christ, shit, I thought you were someone else.”

Dad looked confused.

“Oliver ring a bell?” Joe asked us. “I think he said he was with you, right?” Something in Dad’s face must’ have confirmed it for him. “You see,” Joe went on, “I thought it was him that killed old Lou, but Tony here. _He_ says he saw _two_ guys under the bed. The boy, and you...”

Dad swallowed.

“Poor kid." Joe laughed. "Determined, I'll give him that. Slipped away from our Dan, here.” He glanced at him, still hovering at my window. “Still, guess he didn’t make it very far."

I just remember this terrible feeling bulldozing through my chest.

"You want blood," Daryl said, "I get it. But take it from me, man. C'mon."

"This man killed our friend. _You_ say he's good people.” I saw it happen. I saw Joe turn crazy, just like that. “S-see that right there i-i-is a _lie_. It's a _lie_!"

Things went wrong.

"Teach him, fellas. Teach him all the way!"

Daryl was beaten. Dan pulled open my door and forced me outside. He held a knife to my throat and stood me in front of the others. I felt his breath on my neck, whispering things, and he was so strong I couldn’t get away.

"YOU LEAVE HIM BE!" Dad couldn't help me, or Daryl, or Michonne, but he still tried. "It was me! _IT WAS JUST ME!_ "

"See, now that's right!" Joe shouted. "Not some damn lie! We can settle this, we're reasonable men."

I was crying. I could smell Dan’s breath, and feel his hands, and see Dad’s eyes wide and wild and I knew he knew it was happening to me, too, it was happening to me the same way he didn’t stop it happening to Oliver.

"First, we're gonna beat Daryl to death," Joe said. "Then we'll have the girl... _then the boy._ And then we'll shoot you and we'll be square."

I was thrown to my hands and knees. I saw a knife and tried to snatch it, but I wasn't fast enough. I wasn't strong enough. I was pinned and laughed at. I threw punches, and then I was held down, knuckles burning against the road.

"Stop your squirming."

I cried and fought and shut my eyes. A shot went off. Joe stumbled, nose gushing. He cursed, and then I saw my father's face. His eyes were empty. His head was twitching. He threw a punch, but it was hard for me to tell what happened after that because there were hands under my clothes and I was being buried and buried _and buried_ into the cement.

"Oh, it's gonna be _so_ much worse now!"

I was on my front, shoved there, cheek crushed under a hand. I heard a zip and a buckle and my lungs were too empty to scream.

"Come on! Get up! Come on! Let's see whatcha got! Right over here! What the hell're you gonna do now sport?"

We were going to die. Only we didn’t. Dad tore Joe’s throat out with his own teeth, and then he went after Dan. By then, Michonne had already taken out Tony, and helped Daryl take out the other two. Dan yanked me up, a knife to my throat. I didn’t know why I couldn’t fight anymore. I couldn’t move, or talk, or focus, or calm down.

"I'll kill him!” Dan begged.

"Let the boy go!" Michonne said.

“ _I’ll kill him!_ ”

My dad just said, "He's mine," and then I was on the ground. Michonne held me. Dad marched past. He used his knife. And he was slow, and _deep._ Michonne tried to hide my face but I _wanted_ to look. My father gutted him. And Dan didn’t stop screaming until he couldn’t anymore.

I’m back inside the truck now, laid along the back seats with my head in Michonne's lap. She’s playing with my hair. Outside, I can hear Dad and Daryl talking.

"I didn't know what they were.”

"How'd you wind up with 'em?"

"I was with Beth, we got out together. I was with her for a while."

"She dead?"

"She's jus’ gone. After that. That's when they found me. I mean, I knew they were bad, but... they had a code. It was simple, stupid, but it was something. It was enough."

"Hey, you were alone."

"They said they were lookin' for some guy and his kid. Said the kid's trail went cold right at the beginning... weren't worth going after. Didn't know they were talking 'bout Oliver... They'd been trackin' the other guy since it all happened, well, las' night they said they spotted him. I was hangin' back. I was gonna leave. But, I stayed. That's when I saw it was you three — right when you saw me... I didn't know what they could do."

"It's not on you, Daryl. _Hey._ It's not on you. You bein' back with us, here, now. That's everything. You're my brother."

My cheek stings and feels crusty when Michonne strokes up from my jaw. She checks I’m awake, and even though I am, I don’t look at her.

"Hey, what you did last night," Daryl says from outside. “Anybody woulda done that.”

"No, not that.”

"Somethin' happened; that ain't you."

"Daryl, you saw what I did to Tyreese. It ain't all of it, but, that's me. That's why I'm here now, that's why Carl is. I owe his life to Oliver. I owe all our lives to him. I can never forgive myself for that.”

He’s quiet a moment.

“I know there’s something else, that there _was_ , something...” I don’t think I know what he means by this, but he decides not to finish anyway, and instead says, “I’m gonna do right by him. I am. That's all that matters."

There are clothes blocking the sun through the windows. I sit up, feeling rusty and old while I climb outside. I head to the back, searching for the bodies, but there gone. Just blood. It’s in Dad’s beard, too. He’s sitting beside Daryl against the side of the truck, a bloodied rag in hand. They’re watching me. Dad tries to wipe his face.

"Where are they?" I ask.

Daryl answers: "I moved 'em outa the way. You didn't needa see any more than y’already did."

I try not to frown. "Their—” My voice breaks. “—Their weapons?"

Daryl just gestures towards the front of the truck. I search through pistols and machine guns and supply bags and magazines, losing hope, growing frustrated, until I finally find what I’m looking for — Oliver's machete: I know it by it’s sharp, chipped, steel blade, and the red handle. There’s a pen in the pile, too. I snatch it and write on the handle: _Oliver De Luca, 1996 to 2011,_ remembering Joe’s countdown last night and realising it must be 2012 today, or at least it was recently. Then, suddenly, I sit back, remembering something else...

He slipped away. He escaped.

I stand up, hot-faced, clutching his machete in my hand while I march back for the truck. My father catches me by the leg.

"What?" I hiss.

He squints. "Y'alright?"

I nod. Daryl looks me up and down. I try not to seem so upset, but I’m blushing and thinking back to what Dad said to him about us.

“They took it,” I say. “I just... wanted to see.”

Dad nods, like he understands. _You don’t,_ I want to yell. And I want to yell other things, terrible things, but I just say, “Maybe, if he made it, I can give it back to him.”

They both look confused.

“He could’ve made it out,” I sat. “He's good at that stuff, he's done it before. Maybe he found the tracks. Maybe he’s close, and looking for us."

Dad just says, "Carl..."

"Dad,” I say back, all caught up. “He could be alive."

Dad’s going to say something, but I cut him off.

"I know — I know, they said... But, Dad, he got out. You ran, remember? You ran, after Lou, that guy you killed. He turned. Maybe that’s what let Oliver escape."

He wipes his face again, not listening.

“Dad...”

"I don't have the answers," he admits, mad. "I never will. But, son, Oliver is gone."

I stare at him. I can feel the words, rising in my throat and crawling over my tongue. I try not to say them. I’ve never said them, not all at once, not aloud, not once in my whole life, but I explode.

"You know what, Dad? Go _fuck_ yourself!"

My father’s face cracks open. His mouth curls into a snarl, but before he has a chance to give me the worst scolding of my life, I throw Oliver's machete back onto the pile of weapons and storm back inside the truck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy reading.


	30. Season 4 ~ A, Part 2: T E R M I N U S

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver first, Carl for the last bit.

It’s got to be around new year now. The big 2012. The end of the world, or something. Pat called all that Mayan calendar stuff bullshit, and he was right — they were late by almost two years.

Not a lot of talking goes on around the four of us lately. I zone out into my brain for hours and hours, then I’ll tune back in at odd moments, noticing the weather, or how hungry I am, or that Judith needs her diaper changed. Otherwise, though, I’ll think of my brother. I’ll pretend we’re younger and playing soldiers outside. Or when I’m in a bad mood, I’ll imagine how he died. I’ll imagine I was there, _watching._ I’ve made some important decisions as of late, too. I’ve decided that silence isn’t my soul sound anymore. I’m over that. I don’t know what my soul sound is but I know it sounds of something. _Anything._ The quiet, the silence. It makes me feel sick now. If I’m around it too much I tap my fingers or sniff or click my tongue or walk a little rougher against the pebbles between the wooden planks, or I'll hum to myself, or sometimes, when it’s bad, I’ll pinch myself, or bite my tongue so that my brain fills with nerve-noise and I stop thinking about anything for a while.

It’s early in the morning and I’m keeping watch. Said I would. Can’t sleep anyhow, even if I tried. We’re close to Terminus:—“Be there tomorrow evening, latest,” Carol tells us. I’m terrified. I click my pen a few times, filling the silence, and pat myself down to find a stray piece of notepad paper from my flannel pocket. I like lists. I’ve been making millions, and when I’m done I leave them behind and let them blow away in the wind.

I write:

_\- Formula (LOTS)_   
_\- Antibiotics_   
_\- Band-aids_   
_\- Duck-tape_   
_\- Diapers (LOTS)_   
_\- Bottled water_   
_\- Food_   
_\- Canned food_   
_\- Jarred food_   
_\- Packeted food_   
_\- Any fucking food!_

I think of honey and peanut-butter sandwiches, and chilli, and corn on the cob and deer jerky and _cornetti con panna_. I’m so hungry I’d eat baby food. I’d eat dog food. I’d eat chilli sauce — I hold my breath and chew my spit, pretending it’s food.

_\- Especially M &M's (not stale)_

I cross that out.

 ** _No one likes stale M &M's anyway, _**I think, writing something more practical.

_-Socks  
-Ammo_

The pen runs out after that. I try to get it to work but I end up getting mad and almost tearing the paper.

I take watch for a few more hours. A walker shows up, but walks right by without noticing me, like I’m invisible, like I don’t exist. Maybe I don’t. Maybe none of us do. Finally, Carol wakes up and takes over.

“Oh, wow,” she whispers, “look at that.”

I had been, since the sun started to show over the horizon. What we’re looking at looks like one of those wallpapers on computers, the automatic ones. Everything is in bluepurplegrey. We’re standing on the peak of a hill, overlooking a quaint town with a water tower and a cinema and a school, hidden under trees a little. I hold my thumb up to hide a big lake behind it. In the sky, I see Venus, the pin-prick planet, and cover that with my thumb instead.

“C'mon, we'll put some tree sap on your wounds,” Carol says. She seems more talkative today. Maybe it’s because we’re almost at our destination. “We’ll head out soon. Soon as you get a few hours’ sleep.”

I don’t want to and she can tell.

“Come on,” she says, “just try. Ty’ll be up soon. At least lie down and shut your eyes until he’s awake.”

Doing as told, I find Tyreese and Judith a few yards away and curl up under some coats. Sleep doesn’t come quickly, but when it finally does hit me, Tyreese wakes up from a nightmare, and we have to get walking again.

* * *

 

“Carl... Are you listening to me?”

_Yes... I just don’t know what to say, but I think you know this. I think you know... And I think what happened last night, and what happened to Oliver, makes it harder for you to talk to me about it. But the thing is, I actually want to talk to you about it. Only, when I try, I falter the same way you are, now, so we’re just stuck in our not talking, all tangled up in it._

“Dad...”

“Yeah.”

“When we heard the guy scream, why didn’t you go help?”

_I know this isn’t what we want to talk about, but it is, too._

“Dad?”

“I mighta done that before.”

“Before what?”

“Before we were out here.”

“But you didn’t.”

 “I know... I know.”

_Yeah, guess you do._

“I want you to be safe carl, above everything else, above every _one_ else, you understand?”

“Guess so.”

“You didn’t think about it, the other day, you just did it. That’s who you are. Carl, you’re a man. You’re a good man. Your mom would be proud. _I’m_ proud. But I didn’t like it. You gotta be careful out here. More careful than before.”

“Guys? Over here. There’s a deer trail up ahead. It connects to a road.”

...

 _SANCTUARY FOR ALL._  
COMMUNITY FOR ALL.  
THOSE WHO ARRIVE, SURVIVE. TERMINUS.

...

"We're getting' close. We'll be there before sundown.”

"Now we head through the woods. We don't know who they are."

"Alright."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Season 4, done! Finally!
> 
> Happy reading.


	31. Season 5 ~ No Sanctuary, Part 1: Beached Whales

"We're close," Carol tells us. "I'm gonna get the three of you there, make sure you're safe." We stop to read another Terminus sign. "But I'm not gonna stay."

I frown at her. Tyreese turns, a hand on Judith’s head, but doesn’t say anything. Then we hear groaning, and twigs snapping under feet — a walker stumbles out onto the tracks.

Tyreese hesitates. "I can't. Not yet."

Carol sighs. "You're gonna have to be able to." Quickly, she marches across the track and drives her knife through the walker's skull. It collapses, and Carol goes down, too, kneeling beside it to catch her breath. She does that a lot lately. She gets tired faster, worried quicker, sadder harder.

Something catches her attention.

" _More..._ "

She’s up and we cross the track into the tree-line, finding covered in a ditch. The ground is soft and wet. We peer over the dirt. The herd’s coming, and the first walker is about to stumble over the bank, we’re going to run, but then there’s gunfire in the distance and the walkers turn and change direction. We wait a minute until they’re gone, then get up and return to the tracks.

"That gunfire," Tyreese says, "could’ve been from Terminus."

"Someone was attacking them," Carol theorises. "Or they were attacking someone."

"Do we even wanna find out?" Tyreese asks.

Carol nods, still out of breath. "Yeah. There's another track due east. It'll get us there. We'll be real careful. We're gonna get answers."

The air smells of that odd earthy smell after it rains —petrichor— while we head through the forest for the other track. My clothes are scratchy and dirty, and the insides of my mouth tastes bitter and dry. My face is sweaty, my nose cold, and my balls — God, my balls are itchy. But the worst thing. It’s gone silent again. Even the insects aren’t buzzing right now. The wind has stopped and the trees aren’t rustling. Rick used to complain about his tinnitus sometimes, the way it would make his ears ring when it was quiet, which is why Carl gave him that MP3 player — right now, I wish I had tinnitus.

Finally, I do hear something. A strange, high-pitched, screeching, pipping noise. I stick two fingers in my ears and try again to see if I’m hearing right. I am. It’s not in my head. Carol and Tyreese hear it, too. We follow it to a clearing with an old shack and a run-down blue car parked outside. There’s a man wearing a baseball cap and a rifle over his shoulder, looking through the trunk.

We watch him from the trees.

He shuts the trunk, tosses an open sack to the ground behind him, then grabs a yellow firework nozzle and prepares it on the ground.

 _"Ten-minute count,"_ a disembodies voice says. _"You screw up, you're on your own, Martin."_

The stranger, Martin, fishes his walkie-talkie out of his pocket. "You don't have to tell me, I wipe my own ass." He’s got to be from Terminus, nowhere else close enough. We leave the tree-line to greet him, weapons drawn just in case. He’s too busy looking through his bag for another firework to notice us. "Alex didn't get it. You see, I knew the chick with the sword was bad news. Bitch looked like a weapon with a weapon."

Tyreese and Carol exchange looks.

_"He was always a sloppy-ass mother–crrk–"_

"Yeah, I told Albert I wanted the kid's hat after they bleed him ou—"

Martin doesn't finish his sentence because my Glock is pressed to the back of his head.

"Drop it and shut the fuck up," I say. My head’s reeling, my gut’s cement. If I weren’t so desperate for answers, I think I’d kill him right now.

Martin puts up his hands. "Listen..." He’s chewing gum. "Ya'll don't have to do this. Whatever you want. We've got a place where everyone's welcome."

"Shut up, man,” Tyreese says.

Martin flinches. "Okay. Okay."

"We're friends with the chick with the sword and the kid in the hat," Carol explains.

I’m shaking.

"Oliver,” Carol says, “drop the gun."

I do. Tyreese binds Martin's hands with a seatbelt he’d ripped from the car. I put my gun away, pull at my beanie. "Carol..."

“I know.”

“Carol...”

“ _I know._ ”

Martin looks at me funny so I pull myself together. Tyreese takes him into the shack. Judith coos to us and Carol shushes her.

"Oliver.”

I look at her, startled.

“I need you right now," she says, like she’s reprimanding me. "You need to focus. We're gonna save him — we're gonna save them _all_. But you _need_ to be with me on this, okay?"

I stare at her, nodding. "Yeah. I'm fine. I got this. I’m — I'm with you. I am."

"Good.” She hands Judith to me. "Because it matters now, more than ever. Are you ready for that?"

I don’t skip a beat. "Tell me what I have to do."

Inside the shack, Martin won’t stop talking: "They attacked us. We're jus' holdin' them.” He admits he lives at Terminus when Carol aims her pistol at his forehead.

"I don't believe you," she says, sorting through the fireworks and slinging his rifle over her shoulder.

"Who else do you have?" Tyreese asks. "Do you know their names?"

Martin shrugs and shakes his head. "We just have the boy and the samurai. That's it. We were just protecting ourselves!"

" _I don't believe you,_ " Carol repeats.

Martin shrinks.

She glances at me. "Go take down that rag from the wall... Yeah, that's it."

Martin keeps trying: "There's a bunch of us out there, in six different directions. There's a lot of gunfire back home. We need to set up our charges all at the same time to confuse the dead ones with. That's good for you, too!"

"No, it isn't." While she talks, she examines the rag I brought over like a teacher grading homework. "There's a herd heading toward Terminus right now. We don't wanna confuse them away. We're gonna need their help." She shoves the rag into my arms and slings the sack over her shoulder.

"It's a _compound,_ " Martin warns. "They'll see you coming — if you even make it that far with all the cold bodies heading over."

Carol grabs my sleeve and pulls us to leave.

"Carol," Tyreese stops her, Judith on his arm, "how you gonna do this?"

She looks at him.

"We're gonna kill people..."

* * *

 

We head back to the tracks, where she put the walker down.

"Help me with this."

We hoist it off the track and into the tree cover, then drop it and kneel beside it. I look at her, then I look at the body, then at her again.

"You're not gonna like this,” she warns.

I give her a look.

"Get your rag,” she says, “cut a slit in the middle, big enough for your head, like a poncho, like I’m doing — here."

I use Lizzie’s knife.

"Put it on... That's it."

I know what we’re doing, and as terrible as it is, I don't protest. I brace myself. Psyche myself up. Carl told me about this trick, first demonstrated by his own father and Glenn, who coated themselves in walker guts to escape Atlanta’s busy-body streets. The smell was an invisibility cloak.

I watch her dissect the body. Entrails ooze out like an overflowing cup. Then, in one movement, she sticks her hand in. I blow my cheeks out. She waits for me to stop doing that, then smears the rotting bowels over her front. She glances at me expectantly. I don’t give her a chance to ask twice. I grab a handful of ... _something..._ and pull it up. It's cold, gritty, and hanging in strings like Elmer glue.

I spread it onto my poncho.

Carol digs up dirt and rubs it into her face and neck. "Don't get it in your eyes, wounds, or mouth." It smells. Even the dirt — it smells. I do it, too. The stench is so bad I gag. When I’m almost done, I ask her, "Are you really gonna go?"

She wipes her fingers on her poncho. The mud and guts are drying in an unsettling orange colour now. "Yes," she answers. "I am."

I just stand up and say, “Let’s go.”

Soon, we’re climbing a bank to a high point overlooking the train station. Passing walkers who think we’re dead, like we are dead. There’s commotion in the distance:—"Put your backs to the walls at either end of the car! _Now!_ " There’s a clatter and a fizz and a crackle noise. Doesn't sound like bullets, or anything I've ever heard before, and then there’s yelling and grunting and coughing. Someone screams, and something loud and heavy slams and then it’s very quiet again. Carol hurries us along to the edge to the fence.

Terminus train station is large and lived-in. I see people inside, at the fences, taking out walkers with knives and sharp things. To the left, outside the property, are several rows of empty train tracks, but inside the property, particularly nearer the right side, there are several stacked and rowed train freights. The one where the commotion is at, is a big a big red one, with a white _A_ painted on its side. I see them. Rick, Daryl, Glenn, and Bob. They’re gagged, hands bound behind their backs, while two men to each of them force them across the courtyard and inside the building. We don’t see anybody else. Just hear the yelling from near or inside the freights — we’re too far to be sure yet.

My sleeve is tugged and I follow Carol along the fence until we’re at the peak of the hill with a clear view over the whole compound. Carol sets her things down between us. She uses her rifle scope to see closer.

“Firework.”

I unzip the bag and hand her one, and then someone screams. The Termites are frantic all of a sudden, yelling and panicking and backing away from the fence. It’s them. ‘The dead ones’. The herd. I wipe sweat away from my face and watch.

Carol fumbles with the firework, sticking the stand of it into the barrel of her rifle, then props it against the fence so that the yellow rocket sticks through.

"Gas tank. See it?”

I nod.

“Shoot it," she says.

I doubt Carol's judgement, but do it anyway.

_Deep breath._

_Brace for the kick back._

The bullet bounces off the metal with a spark and a _ping!_. I glance at Carol, worried I’ve done something wrong. She doesn’t look at me, just the tank. “Again!”

I shoot — this time, my bullet hits, and penetrates. There’s a loud _psss!_ and steam bursts from the tank. Walkers draw to it slowly, then Carol has grabbed my ears and pulled me down. It takes me a second to realise why, but I spot the lighter in her hand, the fizzing fuse, and the pop and howl as the firework rockets up up up into the sky...and comes down on the tank. The force of the explosion knocks us back and the ground under our knees rumbles. I look at the damage and see fire eating up the sky, walkers and rubble and bits of fence being thrown in all directions, and the remaining bodies sitting up, slowly, and flooding through the breach. We gather our things and go in with them.

"Act dead," Carol whispers. I follow her lead, stiff and slow and lazy. Blazing flames eat up the fallen bodies and the walking ones, and from the tank, a dark tower of smoke begins rising into the early evening sky. We go deeper into Terminus. I keep my Glock close, jump when I hear screaming. Somebody is getting eaten. A Termite. I remind myself I don’t care, that this is necessary. Their family or mine. _Mine._ Bullets spray over my head and a walker behind me drops to the floor like a rock. Carol pulls me by my arm to take cover in a doorway. Up on the roof, I see the guy shooting.

I pick up my gun. And I shoot him. I don’t know what happens to me after that. The floor turns to tar and the buildings around me grow tall and dark like trees and I sink and sink and sink... then come back up when I realise I have to kill someone again — Carol is faster than me, and walkers are chasing us and she’s grabbing me close and stuffing us inside the building.

* * *

 

Inside Terminus, we stop to catch our breath in a corridor that seems empty. I hug myself. Carol takes my hand but I pull away. She looks at me, startles. I stop being an asshole and lead the way down the corridor into the first room I come across. It’s filled with tables piled high with belongings; clothes, weapons, even toys and jewellery. I search the hats, looking through Stetsons and head bands and baseball caps and beanies, but don’t find any I recognise. I keep looking. I find Rick’s old, tattered Rolex.

“Carol?”

She has her back to me. I join her. She’s found Daryl's crossbow — it looks small without him, like a dead body. I shiver and put the Rolex in Carol’s palm.

"It's Rick's," she says.

I know this, so I don’t say anything.

“He didn’t come here with it,” Carol adds, getting to the bit I’m frustrated by. “He gave it to some guy and his girlfriend, on that run I never got back from, but they didn’t make it. The watch was lost. I gave Rick mine."

I nod. This makes sense. I think I’m in a good mood because I laugh.

“What?” she asks, worried.

“We’re gonna find the guy, too,” I say, and Carol doesn’t say anything. She pulls the crossbow over her shoulder and I follow her out of the room.

* * *

 

Deep in the train station, we follow more corridors. The gunfire outside hasn’t stopped, neither has the screaming. Lost, we decide to just find a way out, and come across a strange room. Candles are set up like alters or shrines everywhere, wax making pools under them or stalactites from others hung up. There's writing all over the floor. Names. We don’t recognise anything or anyone and I’m glad — glad, as we head for another door, with another _A_ painted in black beside it, where there are shadows under it, shuffling by.

"Drop your weapons and turn around!"

We stop moving.

"I wanna see your faces." She sounds furious _._ I turn and see a woman with wrung-out, long, braided hair over her shoulder, and torn, bloody clothes. “You too, lady... _Now!_ "

I flinch. She makes us drop our weapons but Carol still swings around with her rifle and shoots madly. I’m ducking and yelping and the braided lady is skidding across the floor, knocking into candles. Then Carol tackles her. The lady grabs her, pins her down, raises a candle-holder, and — “Put it down!”

She looks up at me, past the barrel of my Glock, crazed. Carol shoves her off and I help her up. The lady heaves. "The signs,” she tells us, “they were real. It _was_ a sanctuary. But people came and took this place..."

"Jus' tell us where—"

"And they raped. And they killed. And they _laughed_. Over weeks! But we _got out!_ We fought it! We got it back! And we heard the _message!_ You're either the butcher or you’re the cattle."

I notice writing behind her on the wall, in bold, black paint: **WE FIRST, ALWAYS.**

"The men they pulled from that train cart, where are they?" Carol insists. The lady doesn’t answer, so she’s shot through the thigh. "WHERE ARE THEY!"

I shudder.

The lady doesn’t tell. She looks Carol dead in the eye and says, "Now. Point it. At. My head." When Carol does, the lady cracks up into sobs and laughter. "You could have been one of us! You could have listened to what the world is telling you!"

Carol grimaces. "You lead people here and you take what they have and you kill them? Is that what this place is?"

"No, not at first. It's what it had to be...” She holds her leg tightly. “And we're still here."

Carol grows tired, and lowers her gun. "You're not here," she says, taking my hand. "And neither are we."

I leave with her, snatching Lizzie's knife from the floor. As the fire escape opens, sunlight shines in and dead bodies shamble inside after it.

_We're not here._

“NO!”

We leave, ignoring the screams behind us.

* * *

 

Across a large courtyard, the one we were watching from outside, we search around the freights. Voices are inside, begging for help, but we don’t know how to get them out and there are too many walkers and Carol tells me to leave them so I do, and we go to the big red freight with the A on it. It’s open. Dead walkers litter the ground around it. I churn inside, every organ and cell and atom.

Carol keeps watch while I climb inside. After taking out one walker I don’t know, I find empty packets of oatmeal and powdered milk and call out to the edges of the darkness. But there’s nothing but the body and a dirty, crumpled, dark-blue hoodie, with a torn off zipper. It smells of him. to be sure. I throw the hoodie to the floor and go outside.

Carol and I exchange head shakes.

She scans the area. "There's too many walkers, we gotta go."

"They might still be inside..."

"Too many. Look, they got out. We'll find them.”

I stare at her.

"I'm not getting you killed!" she yells, and walkers turn to us. "We have to go, _now._ " We rush along the fence, climbing over, and escape into the woods. We run until I can't keep going anymore.

Carol lets me stop for a minute to take my inhaler.

"We got away," I pant. "They got away. Carol, we did it."

Breathless, she pulls out a bottle of water and tells me to wash some of the muck off my face. I do. Carol too, until the bottle is almost empty and we drink the rest. "We gotta keep moving." We find footprints, messy and rushed and close together. My heart is kicking me in the gut a hundred times a second. Carol and I don't talk. Just hold each other's hand. Then, finally, we find them.

"The hell we still around here for?"

"Guns. Some supplies. We'll go along the fences... use the rifles. Take out the rest of 'em."

"What?"

"They don't get to live."

"The fences're down. They'll run or die."

I can hardly believe it. Some voices, granted, I don’t recognise. But most, I do. I _really_ do. It’s Rick, and Glenn, and Maggie, and some tall, buff dude with red hair and a moustache even _Yosemite Sam_ would be impressed by. Carol and I are watching them, hypnotised. Besides the red-haired guy, there are three others we don’t know. A pale-skinned, dark haired woman, another woman with light brown skin and brown hair and a cap, and a stout man with a dark mullet. But the rest? Sasha, Bob, Glenn, Daryl, Maggie, Michonne, Rick, and Carl. Breathing’s overrated. I’m over it. Who needs air when you have whole ocean-soul boys standing right ahead of you? I wipeout inside my head, like I just got swallowed by a riptide.

I don’t know what makes them finally notice us standing here behind the trees, but whatever it is, it makes us all hold our breath. I look around at them, and then, suddenly, Carl is running towards me, crashing waves for hair and flannel shirts and I drown. Don’t even come up for air. The hug is messy and mad and I think my boots leave the ground for a moment. I laugh nervously, crying too. Carl just keeps saying, “You were gone. You were gone.” And somewhere in the middle of this we pull away and we can’t stop grinning at each other. Carol and Daryl are hugging and breathing fast and muttering, and then Rick is here, standing by us.

"Did you do that?"

I look at him. Then I have to look away because Rick is staring at me like he's just seen a whale wash up right in front of us — like _I’m_ the whale, until I realise Rick is staring at Carol, too, like we’re beached whales together; the last two things on earth he thought he'd see wash up out here.

Carol’s too distracted to care about whales. She’s nodding. She’s crying. And Rick is hugging her. Me too. I get that feeling like I might start crying my eyes out.

"Thank you," Rick chokes out. He steps over to the satchel he was digging at a moment ago and pulls it from the dirt, unzipping it, wiping his tears again before pulling out my machete. He hands it over and puts his hand on my shoulder. I nod, wiping my face. Words are too hard, especially to a beached whale.

"You have to come with us," Carol says.

All the way back to the shack, I don’t tell Carl or anybody what we’re about to show them. It’s going to be a surprise. And it is. Tyreese exits the shack with Judith in his arms and then Carl, Rick and Sasha are flying into them. Rick and Carl are both crying, holding Judith, trembling, and Tyreese doesn’t let go of Sasha for anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This episode Rekt me.
> 
> Happy reading.


	32. Season 5 ~ No Sanctuary, Part 2: Death Date

Lady with the dark hair and pale skin is Tara Chambler. The other, who speaks Spanish when she’s angry, is Rosita Espinosa. The red-head is Sargent. Abraham Ford. The stout dude is Eugene Porter, who’s a scientist, I think someone said briefly.

Lots of things are different now in the weeks since I’ve seen everybody else. Sasha looks happier. Bob, too. Glenn and haven’t changed much, unless I count Glenn not being sick anymore. Rick looks older. Michonne doesn’t have her sword. Carl’s got cuts and bruises on his face and hands. I guess Carol, Tyreese and I have changed, too. More scars.

There are dead walkers around the shack and Tyreese tells me and Carol that Martin got his hands around Judith's neck, so he killed him. I don’t know if I like this conversation, so I head for Judith and Carl, except Rick is there and I’m avoiding him so I digress to the car and try to look busy. Like I’m looking for something, I lean in through the window and open the glove box. There are some _Morley_ cigarettes inside. My dad smoked those.

I remember one time when I was little, back in North Dakota before my family moved to Virginia, Pat told me our grandparents were all dead or dying from smoking, and that our dad would probably die that way too. I’d cried all day. Patrick got into so much trouble. Now though, I’m not so afraid of dying, or at least I’m aware there are more likely ways to go than cancer — plus, I’m _full_ of testosterone and bad decisions, so I check nobody’s looking and stuff the pack in my pocket.

Carl sitting on the hood when I lean out of the car, talking to Michonne. Rick’s talking to Daryl. I leave the car and then Michonne is hugging me. _Bear_ hugging me. Then she walks away to speak to the others.

Carl is watching me expectantly. I don’t know why, until I see my beanie in his hands. I touch my head. “How...”

“Must’ve dropped it,” he says. “Found it around on the floor.”

I put it back on and lean against the hood.

We don't talk for a minute. The quiet messes with me a little so I fiddle with my machete handle. It's peeling a little, so I stick it back down. "Oh..."

"Oh, right."

"You..."

"Yeah," Carl says, his face red suddenly.

"You wrote my death date."

"I... guess?"

I frown at it, and then I laugh. "Thanks, man."

He looks relieved, and the quiet is nicer than it was before. Carl's rubbing his eyes. They look red and sore and I remember the clatter and fizz and crackle and realise it's from tear gas.

"Does it hurt?" I ask.

Carl shrugs. "Itches."

I point at the scratch on Carl's cheek. "What about that one? And those, on your hands?"

Carl shrugs again. “Doesn’t matter,” he says, only I don’t believe him, and not believing him makes me anxious so I get up and go get something warmer to give Judith.

"I don't know if the fire's still burning," Rick says, watching a dark cloud of smoke rise from Terminus' graveyard.

"It is," Carol confirms — we don’t look at each other.

Rick pockets a small rag he was wiping his hands with. "We needa go."

"Yeah, but where?" Daryl asks.

"Somewhere far away from there."

Daryl squeezes his arm. Carl slips off the bonnet. I offer to take his sister but he doesn’t seem keen on letting go yet, so leave him to it. While we cross the track for the last time, keeping the dark tower of smoke to our backs and the setting sun as our target, Carl looks over his shoulder. I look, too. His father’s stopped by another sign. He grabs some mud from the floor in a dirty rag and smears over another message.

_No sanctuary._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy reading.


	33. Season 5 ~ Strangers, Part 1: Repay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quite a lot of dialogue, hope it isn't too hard to follow.

Later, we stop in the woods and set up camp for the night. I set up Judith’s formula, and when ready, pass it to Carl so he can feed her. There’s not much left. Judith is struggling and crying so I coo to her. Carl looks annoyed by this, but grateful all the same when she settles into him. Everyone else is up to their own business, maintaining the fire and sharing supplies and chatting, or not chatting at all, like Eugene and Tara and Daryl, and me and Carl. There’s something we aren’t talking about. I know what it is but I don’t know if he knows, or if he does, then I don’t know if he knows all of it.

Finally, Carl speaks. “They found us last night."

I think my face splits to ten. “Who?”

“You know.”

“I do?” I ask.

“You do.”

I don’t say anything, because I know he’s right.

“They snuck up on us,” Carl adds. “Had guns on Dad and Michonne. Daryl was with them. He didn't know what they were. Was just gonna stay until he found somewhere better. When he saw us, he tried to help — he tried to talk them down, but they turned on him. They...”

I don’t want to hear this.

“I know what happened to you," Carl says. “Or, at least, I know what he was.”

I look away. I watch Rick speak alone with Tara and then Carl touches my wrist and I flinch, so he stops.

“Did... Did he...”

“No,” Carl says. “It was bad, but... Dad saved me. He tore one guy’s throat out with his teeth."

My eyes are shut while I ask, “And the guy who—?”

“Dad gutted him."

"And... are you okay?"

Carl looks at me. "If you are."

I look at him. I try to smile. "Yeah," I insist. “I’m good now. Promise."

Carl sighs, the sunset all orange and purple and tangled inside his hair.

"I love you," he whispers to me, only it sounds more like, "You smell like walker guts."

"Like air," I reply, only it comes out as, "Screw you, man."

He smiles.

I frown.

He asks, “What?”

And I say, “You’re staring.”

“Yeah?”

I shake my head. “Someone might notice.”

Carl gives me this astounded look then. “They already know,” he says. “Well, Michonne does. I think Daryl, too. And—”

"Oliver?" Rick asks, and I black out inside my head. “Can I talk to you a minute?”

Quickly, I nod. Rick walks away to wait for me outside of camp. I look at Carl. “He wants to talk to me.”

“I know. I was right here while he said it.”

I thump his arm. “What do we do?!”

“We?”

“Yes, man, we.”

“You. He asked for _you._ ”

“What do I do?”

“Go?”

I nod like this should have been obvious. Then I go. Rick is waiting for me. I stuff my pockets, then remember that’s rude so remove again. I open and close them by my sides, not knowing what else to do with them. My stomach fills with butterflies. Rick leads us through the woods to a shallow creek. Finally, he turns to me. He looks around us, hands on his hips.

He looks me in the eyes. I hold my breath.

"I'm guessing you know why I've asked you out here."

I nod.

"Good." The corners of his eyes crinkle like Carl’s do. "Good." He looks away, and then he shakes his head, sighs, and looks at me again. “Oliver, back at the house... I'm sorry.”

I blink. I wasn’t expecting this.

“I didn’t stop them,” Rick tells me. “I had to save my boy—”

“We don’t need to talk about—”

“And I know that will never make up for it,” he cuts me off. “I know what happened was terrible. I am just so sorry.” He says it again, and again, and again. “I can never forgive myself, and I don't expect you to either. Not after everything you went through. Not after everything you’ve done for us. I... I need you to know, I am sorry."

He tries to grip my shoulder in that way he does to Carl sometimes, but I step back. “Really, sir. We don’t need to speak of it.”

He’s nodding, eyes wet, face pale.

I avoid looking at him.

"You saved my family,” he whispers. “My boy. My baby girl. I can never repay you for that."

I just nod, a little stunned, and all the things I’ve been spending so much time not thinking about come barrelling in. Who to blame, who not to blame, what I could have done differently, what he could have done, and all the words I want to yell and scream and cry at him are getting all caught up in my throat. Rick looks like he might cry. I’m not good around crying people, especially not grown men. Especially if I might cry, too.

I’m pacing.

I’m telling him, “I don’t care.”

I’m telling him, “I’m here now. I’m alive. The shit wasn’t worth it, but I made it out. I made it here. I made it to you guys.”

And then I stand in front of him and look him dead in the eye and touch my palm to his chest because that seems like a place he might be hurting most. It’s the place I’m hurting most, too.

"Everything works out the way it’s supposed to," I say.

Rick nods.

I drop my hand. I think we should leave but I don’t. I say, “I think I want to talk to you about me and Carl — I thought, before, you asked me out here to do that. I thought you knew.” The words tumble out and Rick is blinking.

He says, “I mean... I... I wasn’t sure, but... I suppose, we can talk about that, too.”

“Good,” I say.

Rick rubs his chin, still looking pretty distraught from the previous topic. He doesn't seem angry though, not disappointed or upset. He's just thinking, taking in what we’re about to talk about. I get this feeling like Rick knew, to some extent, whether Carl told him or not, so I try to be as delicate as I can.

“He’s my best friend,” I explain. “He’s the best guy I know. And nothing’s really changed, we just... kind of like each other like most people expect us to like girls.” It’s all coming out a lot stranger than I want it to, but Rick seems to find it somewhat entertaining, so I keep going: “So, if it’s okay with you, we’d like it if... well... if it could be okay with you.”

And then Rick nods.

He tells me, “It’s okay with me.”

Just then, Carol and Tyreese are coming through the trees. They ask me to help collect water, so Rick leaves while we head for the stream. Carol and I clean any remaining walker gunk off ourselves and after a while of bottle filling, I ask if she talked to Rick yet, in case there’s still some bad air around what happened at the prison. She says no, that she’ll talk to him when it's quieter:—“I’ll give him his watch back. Might break the ice a bit."

"I talked to him," Tyreese tells us. "Some of them know what you did. Daryl, Maggie. They accept it. You wouldn't be here if they didn't. I'll talk to the rest, tell them to accept it, too."

"You don't have to do that," she says.

"No," Tyreese insists, "they do. They just do..."

I grab another bottle and fill it.

"We don't need to tell them about the girls," Tyreese tells us. "I don't want to.”

"Why?" Carol asks.

Tyreese sighs. "I just... need to forget."

_“It's too easy to lose."_

“I’m not going to forget,” I say, snapping it. “I don’t want to.” I collect the bottles I’ve filled and dump them back to camp, then sit by the fire and watch the flame.

* * *

 

Late, when everybody is either asleep or keeping watch, and then there’s me, who can’t sleep right like always. Carl’s been trying to stay awake with me.

“Just sleep, man. I don’t need you developing insomnia for me.”

He yawns. “I’m...fine.”

I push him to sit up when he bumps me falling asleep. He sits up. He asks, “Tell me again, what he said?”

I smile.

“Your dad said: It’s okay with him,” I say, in my head thinking, "ISN'T IT GREAT? OH MY GOD! I'M SO HAPPY I THINK I'M GOING TO EXPLODE!" but I rein it all in and say again, “It’s okay with him.”

Carl’s grinning, and he’s leaning on me, and I ask him not to, so he shuffles away a little and lies down to sleep. He lays there for a while, not saying anything, until he looks at me and he says, “You don’t have to hold my hand anymore — you don’t even have to kiss me anymore. Not if you don’t want to.”

“It’s not that...”

“I know, really,” he says, turning over and getting comfy. “Just, know. Okay? Don’t kiss me if you don’t want to... Kiss me if you do.”

I smile. “Thanks, man.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy reading.


	34. Season 5 ~ Strangers, Part 2: The Stranger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: No offence is intended towards any kind of religion during this fic.

I wake up with two little girls bleeding inside my eyeballs, then blink them away. It’s early. Everybody is waking up and mingling together to get ready to leave, except Carl. He sleeps through Abraham’s, “Wakey, wakey, early bird gets the worm!” and Rick’s, “Son, get up.” I know why he’s so tired — he stayed up most of the night with me. Still, when I try to wake him up with a few pokes to his chest, he tells me to shove off, so I figure he _wants_ me to blow into his ear.

He’s awake, thrashing at his face. I throw a duffel bag at him. “Get ready, man. We’re leaving soon.” He does as told while I harvest some pecans from the ground and share some with him. I’m not hungry yet. Or at least I’m not hungry enough for pecans yet, so I eat one, reluctantly, and stuff the rest in my pocket for later.

Soon, after we get going, Daryl returns from a scout. We all are on edge, and startle when we hear him. "I surrender..." Nobody really laughs even though he’s trying to be funny. Daryl puts his hands down. Tied and hung over his arm is an impressive collection of squirrels. I eye them hungrily, but keep moving, grabbing my stuff and holstering my gun.

Rick and Daryl talk privately. Daryl thinks someone's been watching us, following us. Rick breaks away from him, whistles to the rest of us, and tells us to keep close. We keep walking. Bob and Sasha keep kissing. "One more," he'll mutter, and she'll kiss him, and he'll say, "One more," again and so on. Carl makes a gagging noise.

We’ve started playing a game.

“Alright, eating anything you want, anywhere in the world, right now. What and where would it be?"

Carl’s head rolls back to think. "Grand Canyon... and canned corn."

"Canned?" I ask. "Why not on the cob?"

“Oh,” he says, like he hadn’t thought of that. “Right. On the cob, totally.”

I laugh.

“What about you?” he asks.

"Easy," I say. "In my bedroom, back in Virginia, stuffing my face with a big can of chocolate pudding, and I'd eat all one-hundred-and-twelve ounces _myself_."

"Knew it."

I grin at him.

"Grand Canyon?" I ask.

Carl shrugs. "When I was a baby, Mom and Dad tried to take a trip there, but I was sick on our journey and we never made it. Kinda promised Sophia we'd go one day, too, but, you know... never happened." He trails off for a second, then ploughs through. "It'd jus' be cool to actually do it one day, you know? Jus'... getting kinda tired of empty promises."

I look at him. "One day," I say, leaving the conversation floating in the air.

"HELP! HELP, ANYBODY! HELP! HELP!"

The screams in the distance make us all startle and grab for our weapons, except Carl, who has never been able to ignore a cry for help. "Dad, c'mon...”

Rick looks at him.

“C'mon!” Carl begs. “Come on!"

Rick relents. Carl spins on his heel and runs to the rescue. I'm right behind them, as is everyone else. We crash through the trees and swat away branches and trip over roots until we’re on the front line facing the chaos. Two walkers have cornered a man. He's atop a large boulder, kicking frantically. They grab and snatch at his ankles. Carl shoots one in the skull. Carol takes out the second. I can hear the third — it jumps out, and I lunge at it and put my machete through its skull. Carol pulls me away. I catch my breath.

"Clear. Keep watch," Rick commands.

The stranger cowers on top of the rock. He's dressed in a black suit with one of those white neck ties that fathers at church wear. His skin is dark, his head bald, eyes wide, and eyebrows arched. He’s shaking.

"C'mon down," Rick encourages.

Shakily, he climbs down. He looks around at everyone. I don’t catch eyes with him because I’m bad at eye contact with people, which is something I’d almost forgotten until yesterday when I was introduced to Abraham and Tara and Eugene and Rosita.

"Are you okay?" Rick asks him.

The stranger tries to answer, but instead holds up a finger — then yacks up into the dirt. Carl turns away. Finally, the stranger tells us, "Sorry. Yes. Thank you.” He sniffs. “I'm Gabriel."

"D'you have any weapons on you?"

Gabriel sort of laugh-gags. I notice Carl curve his lips into a friendly smile. I decide in this moment to let him to do all the socialising from now on.

Gabriel realises Rick wasn’t kidding and answers. "Do I look like I would have any weapons?"

"We don't give too short and curlies what it looks like," Abraham interjects.

"I have no weapons of any kind," Gabriel says. "The word of God is the only protection I need."

"Sure didn't look like it," Daryl says.

Gabriel smiles at him. His smile shakes.

"I called for help," he says. "Help came..." He’s looking at us again and I’m doing that _letting everybody else be friendly_ thing. "Do you, uh... have any food? Whatever, uh, I had left has just hit the ground."

I remember the pecans in my pocket and push them into Carl's open palm, hanging loosely beside him. He takes them.

"We've got some pecans?" he offers, handing them over.

"Thank you." Gabriel glances over at the rest of us, eyes lingering on Judith. "That's a beautiful child... Do you have a camp?"

"No," Rick answers. "Do you?"

"A church."

**_Of course._ **

"Hold your hands above your head," Rick commands, tired of this. Gabriel does as told. Rick frisks him. "How many walkers have you killed?"

"Uh, n...not any, actually."

"Turn around. How many people've you killed?"

"None...”

Rick glares. "Why?"

"Because the Lord abhors violence."

Rick stares at him, steps closer. "What've you _done?_ We've all done something."

"I'm a sinner," Gabriel says. "I sin almost every day.” This makes me snort and I get elbowed by Tyreese for it. Gabriel ignores this, and keeps talking. “But those sins? I confess them to God... Not strangers."

"You said you had a church," Michonne digresses.

Gabriel nods curiously.

"Lead the way, _father_ ," Daryl says.

* * *

 

We follow Gabriel for a while along a wooded track. At some point, Rick asks if he was who was watching us, but Gabriel says, “I keep to myself. Nower days, people are just as dangerous as the dead, don't you think?”

"No," Daryl answers. "People're worse."

"Well, I wasn't watching you. I haven't been beyond the stream near my church more than a few times since it all started — that was the furthest I've gone before today."

He looks around at us.

"Or maybe I'm lying," he says. "Maybe I'm lying about everything and there's no church at all. Maybe I'm leading you into a trap so I can steal all your squirrels."

We circle him.

Gabriel swallows. "Members of my flock had, uh, often told me that my sense of humour leaves... much to be desired."

"Yeah, it does," Daryl agrees.

Gabriel averts his eyes, turns, and keeps walking — into a tree branch. I look at Carl and he’s smiling, which makes me frown, and then there is cement under my feet. I look down and see dead leaves and dirt, but it’s here, _road,_ and it feels great.

The church is ahead, just like Gabriel said. It is small and cosy-looking, situated right in the very centre of the lot. It kind of reminds me of a place in a comic I read once. Carl’s grin doesn’t go away while he takes Judith from Tyreese. She’s asleep, a chubby cheek squashed against Carl’s shoulder as we walk along the driveway. To the side, by the fence, there’s a sign: _ST. SARAH'S CHURCH: EPISCOPAL._ Surrounding most of the lot are trees, and inside the fence, across from the building, is a small graveyard, and a white church bus poking its bonnet around the back.

"Hold up," Rick says, following Gabriel up the steps. "Can we take a look around first? We jus' wanna hold onto our squirrels."

Gabriel laughs nervously. Michonne, Daryl, Carol, Glenn, Rick and I go inside. I keep my Glock where my eyes are. We pass rows of benches supplied with praying cushions and bibles. The church is clean — spotless, even, but the air smells musky and thick; lived-in too long without an open window.

Carol follows me into the office, or maybe a sacristy, I think — that place in churches where holy objects and special clothes for ceremonies are kept. I only know this because of my mom. Still, I don't think it is a sacristy anyway. It doesn’t look right; too used.

Carol goes to the desk, cluttered with strange artefacts and papers and an old telephone. She flips through a notebook. I view an art piece on the wall. _The Last Supper_. I know that story. Daryl comes in, nosing at some of the fancy garbs and paintings. I join Carol. Her face is hard like stone, and she isn't fast enough to close the notebook before I read what’s written into the margins: _THOU SHALT NOT KILL._

I leave the room. My skin doesn’t feel like it fits so bad while I walk along the chapel and join Rick ahead of the alter, under the coloured glass windows. The alter is separated by a railing, where there's a table and a few unlit candles and brass ornaments, but what catches our attention is the stacks of open cans of food neatly ordered against the wall. Rick crouches to look past the table, seeing more. Rick turns and whistles to the others, and we head back outside. Sasha, Bob, Abraham and Rosita meet us from their perimeter check, shaking their heads for a clear coast.

"I spent months here without stepping out the front door,” Gabriel explains, “if you found someone inside, well, it would've been surprising."

Again, nobody finds this funny except Carl.

"Thanks for this," he smiles, rocking Judith in his arms.

Gabriel smiles at him. Rick gives Carl a look. Even at the prison around people he knew, Carl was never this nice to anybody, not even me. Carl seems to notice, and looks embarrassed.

"We found a short bus out back," Abraham is saying. "It don't run, but I bet we could fix that in less than a day or two. And father here says he doesn't want it. Looks like we found ourselves some transport."

It occurs to me that Abraha has been hinting at a road trip since I met him, but where, I don’t know.

"You understand what's at stake here, right?" he adds.

"Yes, I do," Rick answers.

Michonne says, "Now that we can take a breath—”

"We take a breath," Abraham interrupts. "We slow down, shit inevitably goes down."

"We need supplies," Michonne argues, "no matter what we do next."

"That's right," Rick seconds her. "Water. Food. Ammunition." He heads inside, ending the conversation. Abraham’s cheeks are red and his face is all folded up.

"Short bus ain't goin' nowhere," Daryl tells him. "I'll bring you back some baked beans."

I make a wide circle around Abraham as I follow the others inside. Carl finds a bench to put Judith down on, and I sit on a bench in front. “What was that all about?” I ask.

"He wants to go to Washington," he says.

“Rosita and Eugene, too?” I ask.

Carl nods.

“And... that other lady, Tara. She’s not with them, right?”

Another nod. “Glenn found her.”

I think about that, and then I sat, "Your dad’s avoiding it."

"He wants us to ‘catch our breath’,” Carl answers.

“Do you?”

Carl just sighs. “We can't always be on the run."

I think about this, too. Remembering telling him something similar. Finally, I ask, "What’s in Washington?"

“They're on a mission,” Carl says. “They’re gonna save the world."

I frown.

"Yeah. Right. And I’m the President of Italy.”

“I’m serious,” Carl insists. “Eugene says he knows the cure."

I tut. I think about home. "D.C? Or, _Washington_ Washington?"

"D.C."

“How’s he going to do it?”

Carl shrugs. “Somethin' about flipping a switch? I think."

“Sounds like a bunch of bullshit if you ask me.”

Across the church, Tyreese says, “Ay!” and I raise my hand in apology.

Carl laughs. "You're not allowed to cuss in church, Oliver. It's a sin."

I sit forward, exhausted, and laugh into my fingertips.

"Don't think preying will help, man," Carl teases.

“I’m not preying,” I reply, putting my hands down.

Just then, Rick comes over. He puts a hand on Carl’s head, nods at me, then takes Judith. We watch him speak alone with Gabriel along the aisle.

After a while, I say, "He seems okay."

Carl looks, too. “Yeah.”

Glenn comes into the church. "We're gonna go take a look around the local neighbourhood. Maggie, Tara and me. We'll stay nearby. There's a gun store around somewhere. We'll find it."

Rick nods, propping Judith more securely on his hip. "Be back before sundown."

They leave. Abraham and Rosita leave, too, to repair the bus out back. Eugene, looking lost, eventually follows them out as well, leaving Rick, Judith, Gabriel, Ty, Sash, Bob, Oliver and me inside.

"I like his mullet," I say finally.

Carl looks at me, frowning. “Why?”

I shrug. “Just do.”

“Do you want a millet?”

“ _No,_ ” I say, “I just appreciate his bravery.”

Carl laughs.

Rick and Gabriel are still talking.

"How'd you survive here for so long? Where did your supplies come from?"

"Luck," Gabriel answers. "Our Annual Canned Food Drive. Things fell apart right after we finished it. It's just me. The food lasted a long time, and then I started scavenging. I've cleaned out every place nearby... except for one."

"What kept you from it?" Rick asks.

"It's overrun."

"How many?"

"A dozen or so, maybe more."

"We can handle a dozen," Rick explains.

"Bob and I'll go with you," Sasha volunteers. "Tyreese should stay here. Help keep Judith safe."

"That'd be okay?" Rick asks him.

"Sure," Tyreese answers. "You ever need me to watch her — need anything for her, I'm right here."

"I'm grateful for it," Rick tells him, "and everything else."

Tyreese nods.

"I'll draw you a map," Gabriel offers.

"You don't need to," Rick says, "you're coming with us."

Gabriel looks at him like he’s waiting for him to realise that’s a foolish idea. "I'm not gonna be of any help. I mean, you saw me. I'm no good around those things."

"You're coming with us..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Introducing... Father Gabriel, and re-introducing... Oliver's social anxiety...
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	35. Season 5 ~ Strangers, Part 3: In Church

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carl’s pov this time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Mild mentions of non-consentual experiences.

Before they leave, Dad pulls me and Oliver aside to speak privately. We take a seat at a bench, me on the bench behind of Oliver’s, and Dad crouched at the end between us, a hand on my knee.

"Listen, I don't trust this guy."

"Why?" I ask.

"Why do you trust him?"

"Everybody can't be bad, Dad."

One side of his mouth tips up into a smile, but he pulls it back. "Well... _I_ don't trust this guy. That's why I'm bringin' him with me, but he could have friends. So, I need you to stay alert. Both of you. Help Tyreese protect Judith, okay?"

We nod.

"Yeah..." He looks each of us in the eye. "Now, I need you to hear, what I'm about to say... Okay?"

"Okay."  
“Sure.”

Dad's forehead grows a hundred wrinkles at once.

"You. Are. Not. Safe. No matter how many people're around. Or how clear the area looks. No matter what anyone says. No matter what you think. You are not safe. It only takes one second. One second, and it's over. Never let your guard down. Never. I want you both to promise me."

We both promise on the spot.

"Okay," he says, and walks away.

"Dad... You're right.” I sigh. “We are strong. All of us are. But, we're strong enough that we can still help people. And we can handle ourselves if things go wrong, and, we're strong enough that we don't have to be afraid, and we don't have to hide."

"Well he's hiding something," Dad says.

"I'll stay safe, Dad. We both will."

He nods to us and squeezes the crook of my neck, then leaves. I watch him, then look at Oliver. He looks exhausted. Not just in lack of sleep but in other ways — his cheeks are gaunt, like an old man, and dark circles hang under his eyes, and his lips are chapped and dry. Beneath his beanie, his hair is matting in some places.

“What?”

I snap out of it. “What?”

“You’re looking at me funny.”

“I’m not looking at you funny.”

“You were, just then. Looking at me like... like...”

“Like what?”

“Like you feel sorry for me or something.”

I sigh and sit next to him. We watch Tyreese cradle Judith and carry her across the chapel to show her the coloured glass windows, whispering things into her ear about Moses being placed in a basket and set adrift among the reeds by his mother.

“You’re pretty unpredictable, man,” Oliver says suddenly. I look at him, a little worried. Oliver adds, “I mean, just look at you. I can’t leave for ten minutes without you deciding to alter your entire perspective. It’s hard to keep up with you.”

I blink.

Oliver smiles. “That was supposed to be a compliment.”

“Are you sure?”

He laughs. “Yes.”

We both look around the room awkwardly for a minute.

“You remind me of Hershel,” I admit, “a little.”

I watch him. I huff out through my nose and sit back in my seat, grinning, and then I get up and say, “I’m gonna take a look around outside.”

“Okay.”

With everybody gone, except Abraham, Rosita and Eugene, who are still outside working on fixing the bus, and Carol and Daryl, who are heading off to go to find more water anyway, it’s just me keeping watch on the place. It's hot outside. Hotter now than this morning. My clothes stick to my skin and my hair clings damp to my neck and forehead and cheeks — stings the graze, so I brush it away and use my hat to hold it back. I stick to the shade, using the building and then crossing the parking lot and staying under the trees. I go to the graveyard.

A twig snaps in the tree-line. I twist around and stare, squinting. Silence. Trees rustle in the breeze and another twig snaps, sounding closer, and my heart thumps a little faster... and then... right behind me... Oliver.

“Dammit!” I hiss, punching his arm again and again.

“Ow! _Ow!_ Dude, stop!”

“I thought you were... dammit, man, don’t do that.”

He snorts, rubbing his arm.

“What are you doing out here?” I insist.

“I gotta go."

"Go where?"

“You know...” His eyes shift, flinging his thumb over his shoulder. "Like, _go._ "

"Oh," I say awkwardly. "Right. Sorry." He goes behind a tree, at one point peeking around it at me. I can hear the _put-put-put_ of his pee against the trunk.

"I don't think my pee should be this colour, man."

"What colour is it?"

"Err..." He disappears to check. "Kind of like, dark. Like, really really dark."

"You're just dehydrated," I say, knowing from experience, trying not to find it funny when he looks at me again, just his head and right shoulder visible. He finishes up and comes back over. We climb up on the fence and sit shoulder-to-shoulder, our backs to the church, watching the road and tree-line.

“The graves aren’t marked,” I say, only just noticing. And then I notice this isn’t even a graveyard. Not an official one, at least. This one is new. Post-turn. “Gabriel buried them here.”

Oliver hears me but doesn’t say anything. I already know Oliver's never been one for much conversation — I used to think it was rude, and I'd do it back, but it kind of ended up with us just spending a lot of time with each other without talking at all, and it turned out that we liked it. It made us closer. But right now, he just seems distant, detached. I know better than to force him to talk to me, especially recently, but I can’t say it’s very nice to wait and do nothing when someone you care so much about is so obviously not them self.

Somewhere behind us in the distance, Abraham and Rosita are bickering about the bus. They stop quickly.

“Carl...”

“Yeah?” I brace myself.

Oliver says that, "Lizzie killed Mika." His whole body is tense and stiff. He keeps talking. "And I’d like to tell you everything that happened before that, and I need you to just listen to me. Carl, can you do that for me?"

I nod.

"The day I lost you," Oliver begins, his voice level and quiet, eyes front. "Your dad and me, we hid. Someone saw me. So your dad wouldn’t get caught, I went with him, one of the claimer guys. He took me downstairs." He shakes his head. "Another guy — same guy who grabbed you, I think. He put claim on me.”

I wince. Oliver doesn’t notice because his eyes are closed now.

“He took me into another room," he says. “He made me take off my clothes. He... did things, and he wouldn’t stop. And when he was gonna... do it, go all the way... your dad stopped him.”

I’m shaking my head. He didn’t, I think. He ran away, I saw him.

“He did,” Oliver says like he heard inside my head. “The guy he killed? He turned and attacked the others. They started screaming. I was so scared. I—I couldn’t believe how scared. And just as that guy was gonna... Just as he was gonna do it, one of the others made him go help.” Oliver grimaces and this terrible hiss-noise comes out of him as he swats away his tears. “ _'I'm not done yet'_... That's what he said, like I was some... some _toy_. But I got out, through the back door. Ran. And found the tracks and kept running. Ran until I couldn't. That’s when Carol and Ty found me. Judith was there, and Mika, and Lizzie. They took care of me. Wound up at some grove house. Stayed there for a while. It was good. But, not all of it. I didn't notice. Lizzie, I don't know, she was doing things, feeding the walkers. I didn't notice. I didn't _want_ to."

It amazes me that he finds this harder to talk about than what happened to him at the suburb.

"Carol and Ty were out hunting," he explains, swallowing hard. "The girls were playing. I went inside for a while, found a shoebox full of mice under the bed, and when I went back out to confront Lizzie... it was too late. She’d already done it.”

He doesn’t speak for a while after that. His head is hung low. He wipes his face again and looks at me.

“Mika died in my arms. Lizzie... she wanted her to change. We couldn't have her and Judith under the same roof. It was how she was. It was already there.”

He breaks down crying again. I hold him because he folds into me, careful not to fall off the fence.

"I shot a man, at Terminus," he adds. "I had to."

His neck is damp and warm and gritty under my hand. Oliver eventually pulls away and gets down from the fence. He kicks some stones past the fence under me, then looks up at me.

“Did you ever manage to do it? Did you ever manage to be a farmer and a murderer at the same time?”

I don’t really know how to answer this, so I dismount the fence and say, “I never said I was a murderer.”

“But you thought it, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know. I guess.”

Oliver sighs.

I tell him, “Sometimes I think I’m a lot of things all at once.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” I whisper. And then I ask him, “Do you feel guilty?”

“Yes,” he says. “Every day. Every second.”

I sigh miserably. “That happens,” I say. “But it doesn’t mean it was on you. Not always. Like you said, it was already there.”

Oliver nods. Abraham and Rosita are yelling at each other again while Eugene fiddles with something in the hood — which we can see when we crane our heads and look around the side of the church wall. Abraham and Rosita stop fighting quickly, like they did before. They’re laughing at each other and then Abraham slaps Rosita’s butt.

Oliver and I walk away, pressing our backs to the church wall.

"I heard Carol and Ty talking once," he says finally. "They said that everyone who we've lost, everyone who's dead, everyone haunting us. They might really just be teaching us, so that we can live with what we have to do."

I look at him.

"And you were right, earlier," he says, barely a whisper, "we don't need to be afraid anymore. And I'm not going to be. Not anymore... Everything works out the way it’s supposed to. So..."

“So?”

“So, I’m going to kiss you,” he says, “because I want to...”

I stand there stunned and dead, with this feeling in my chest like something wild caught in a small space, desperate to come out, and before I get more than a nod out of my system, Oliver is stepping into me, a hand on my shirt collar, and we kiss.

When we pull apart, Oliver looks exhausted, like he’s just ran a marathon — like he’s that Athenian I read about once who died of exhaustion after running twenty-six miles to Sparta to get help before The Battle of Marathon. I don’t know why I think about this. I read about it months ago.

"Holy..."

"What?"

"Nothing,” I say. “Nothing at all."

"I think we should get back to kissing."

“This isn’t kissing,” I say. “This is... This is...”

“I know.” He laughs, and we kiss again — for longer this time. My back thumps the wall and Oliver pulls back quickly. "Sorry."

“Shut up,” I tell him, and we’re kissing again. My hands are in his hair. He’s sweating. We stop for air and watch each other. "I think this is a sin, too," I say breathlessly, "to kiss in church."

"We're not _in_ church.”

I crack up, then step back and pick up my hat. His, too. I’m not sure when they fell off. Oliver just stands there in front of me, looking smug and teenage boyish.

I point. “You know you have hair on your face now, right?”

“Wait, I do?"

I pinch some moustache gently. “See?"

He laughs and tries himself. “Oh, dude... look, I’ve got a beard!”

"It’s barely more than peach fuzz."

"Jealous."

I neither confirm or deny.

“No need anyway,” he says, “you’ve hit puberty, too. Look at those sideburns, man—” His eyes move to the wall behind me and his face goes tight and uncomfortable. I turn to what’s caught his attention, and step back when I see it.

_‘YOU'LL BURN FOR THIS’_

It’s carved into the wall right where we’d been kissing.

Oliver’s voice is a small stutter when he finally speaks: "Maybe — Maybe God takes kissing in church more seriously than we thought."

I smack him in the chest.

"Yeah, sorry. That wasn’t funny."

Ignoring him, I reach forward to touch it, but Oliver snatches my arm back.

“Don’t...”

“Why, it won’t curse me.”

“You don’t know that,” Oliver retorts.

"It's been scratched in or something," I say, again, ignoring that. “And it _isn't_ meant for us."

“Okay, okay,” Oliver relents.

“Look, there’s more...” They're on shutters and window frames. Not words. Scratches.

"Could be from walkers," Oliver says. I shake my head, pointing for him to look closer. Oliver squints, then looks at me. "You know, you could be a cop, or a detective."

"Michonne said that to me," I admit, "back on that day."

We give each other a look like we know exactly what day I’m talking about.

“You know what this means, right?” Oliver asks. “That someone was trying to get in, and Gabe wasn’t letting them...”

“We don’t know that.”

Oliver doesn’t look happy either way.

Just then, we hear the others getting back. Oliver goes to greet them while I stay put, and he and Dad come back a minute later.

"Hey,” Dad says to me.

“We’ve been taking a look around,” Oliver explains.

Dad must nod. “Come on in. We found food, and a lot of it. Carl? What is it?"

I show him the scratches. "They're deep, like, knives or something. Someone was trying to get in."

Dad doesn’t look convinced. I look at Oliver for help, and catch him glance to where we’d found the message before.

"We found something else," I say, taking them around the corner. "We don't know what happened, not for sure, but, whatever it is, we can handle it."

Dad is reading and frowning, all tense and uncomfortable. He runs a dirty thumb along the letters and even in the heat, Oliver’s shivers.

"Doesn't mean Gabriel's a bad guy for sure,” I tell them, “but... it means _something_."

Dad inhales steeply. "C'mon inside, boys."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It used to say Rick ‘saved’ him, but now it says Rick ‘stopped’ it. Saved made it sound too much like Oliver wasn’t himself or wasn’t okay/pure/innocent/whatever anymore after the assault, but he’s the same as always, just with bad memories of it, and I didn’t want to add any stigma against actual assault victims.
> 
> Happy reading.


	36. Season 5 ~ Strangers, Part 4: The Last Supper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver again...

Glenn, Maggie and Tara get back with a few gun silencers and a little extra ammo, and with the water Carol and Daryl bring back, we’re all able to wash. No more itchy balls for me. It’s wonderful — I had no idea until today that I’m totally _in love_ with uninflamed genitalia. Always have been. Finally, to make things _even_ better, Rick and the others have found days’ worth of food, along with new clothes for all of us.

I’m so used to seeing Carl in that dirty, plaid-blue flannel shirt that when it’s replaced by a dark blue, clean one, I get this feeling in my head like he’s shed his skin — new and improved layer underneath. He keeps his odd shoes, however. I kept my boots, too, but switch their worn, red laces for some duller ones, as well as swapping my torn up jeans for new ones, along with a green plaid flannel and some thick, fluffy, polka-dotted socks.

We all fill our plates from today’s score — diced tomatoes, mixed vegetables, canned chicken, cooked squirrel, and more. People are sitting around inside the chapel, mostly nearest the altar. I sit on the floor with my back against the side of a bench, despite there being room on it. Carol, too, sits beside me, leaning against the bench behind.

 _Furniture’s overrated anyway,_ she thinks to me.

I eat my supper, smiling at the others as they talk together. Judith feeds her father a piece of squirrel and Rick makes funny, _"Ahhh,"_ noises, opening his mouth wide. Judith grins, amazed. I give myself private credit for teaching her to share.

“Hey...”

I look at Carol. She’s holding out her hand.

“Hat,” she says. In her lap, she has a sewing kit from the office and some scissors. “It’s bothering me how much it falls off. Gi’me.”

I hand it over. "What're you gonna do to it?"

Carol starts sewing. I leave her to it. Just as Carl returns with a plate of sweetcorn, Abraham stands to give a speech.

"I look around this room and I see survivors. Each and every one of you has earned that title.” He raises his wine glass to toast. "To the survivors."

"To the Survivors!"   
Almost everyone cheers.

"Is that all you wanna be?" Abraham asks. "Wake up in the morning, fight the un-dead pricks, forage for food, go to sleep at night — two eyes open, rinse and repeat? 'Cause we can do that. I mean, you got the strength. You got the skill. Thing is, for you people—what you can do, now, that's jus' surrender."

I wonder how much he’s had to drink. He goes on talking about getting Eugene to D.C. “Making the dead die, and the living will have this world again.” How: “That’s not a bad take away for a little road trip." And it occurs to me that I want my beanie back, so I glance back at Carol. She’s looking at the door, my beanie bunched up in her hands. She notices me, she snaps off the thread, puts the needle back in the sewing kit, and hands me my hat.

It fits snugly now and I fall in love with it like I’ve fallen back in love with comfortable balls.

"Eugene," Abraham asks, talking loud so we all hear. "What's in D.C.?"

Eugene, sitting on a bench across from us, clears his throat, sits up, and says, "Infrastructure constructed to withstand pandemics even to this food-bar magnitude.” He looks around and realises nobody understood that. “That means food, fuel, refuge. Restart."

"However this plays out," Abraham interjects. "However long it takes for the reset button to kick in, you can be safe there — safer than you been since this whole thing started. Come with us? Save the world for that little one. Save it for yourselves. Save it for the people out there who've got nothin' left except to survive."

It sounds good. Rick thinks so too. He grins at Judith, who is trying to say words at him. "What was that?" he asks her. Some of us chuckle. Rick looks up at Abraham, smiling. "I think she knows what I'm about to say."

Judith hums.

"She's in. If she's in, I'm in.” Rick grins. “We're in."

* * *

 

Later in the night, I lay under a bench with Carl and think about how much I really, really, really loved today.

“Oliver,” I hear, “you awake?”

“Yeah.”

"How far do you think D.C. is?" he mumbles, shutting a bible he’s been reading and switching off his flashlight.

"Six or seven-hundred miles," I say absently, and see upside down as Carl frowns.

"How'd you know that?"

I shrug.

“Come on, how’d you know that?”

"Lorton,” I say, and hearing the word outside the deepest parts of my brain is odd and uncomfortable. “It’s where I used to live. I know how far it is from Georgia. Lorton’s, like, a twenty-minute drive from D.C. — I used to go there on school trips and birthdays."

“Really?”

I shrug again. “We’ll probably go right through to get there.”

"That’s cool."

_Is it?_

“You okay with it?”

“Sure.”

“Really?”

I shrug, get thumped for it, say, “It’s nothing.”

Carl looks back to his bible and sighs. "It's not nothing, man."

“It’s enough nothing that if we talk about it I’m just gonna get sad, and I’ve had enough of that lately, so it can wait.”

“Okay,” he says, and puts his hand on my shoulder. I shrug it off, get up, and walk away. “Where are you going?”

“Gotta go to the bathroom,” I lie. “ _God,_ do I have to tell you everything?”

He frowns at me, then looks back at his book, mad. As I head for the door, I notice I’ve caught the attention of his father, who is watching us. I look for Carol because Carol is where I look when I’m sad and angry and need someone to talk to. She isn’t sitting at any of the benches, not under the pillars, or at the altar. Not in Gabriel's office when I knock, or the supply room, or the bathroom. As I march back across the chapel, I think of the way she was looking at the door earlier and I get a bad feeling.

"Y'alright?" Daryl stops me before I leave.

"Yeah. Looking for Carol."

Daryl narrows his eyes, grunting in that way like he's trying to steer a conversation to its end. "Didn’t see her go outside."

“You wouldn’t have if she didn’t want you to.” I don’t like the way I say that. Neither does Daryl, by the look on his face. Quickly, he turns on his heel. I head after him but he stops me.

"No, don't need you goin' missin’ too."

"She's not _missing,_ " I gripe.

Daryl looks at me like he doesn’t have time for this. “I know where she's gone,” he tells me. “Stay. Got it?”

I grit my teeth. “Yes, sir.”

He leaves, angel wings disappearing into the night as the church door swings shut after him. I sit on the bench closest to the exit and wait. After a while, Carl joins me. He doesn’t talk to me. He just hands me my inhaler, which I must have dropped, and gets up to walk away.

“I’m sorry for getting mad,” I tell him quickly.

He looks at me, sits, and shrugs. “Gotta be a reason.”

“It’s not you,” I say. “Just... my parents. They’re at home.”

Carl nods like he’d figured as much.

I decide to change subject. "Carol did it,” I whisper to him, careful nobody hears, “killed Karen and David. She was trying to stop the illness from spreading."

“I heard,” he says. “Tyreese.”

"Your dad found out,” I say. “That's why she never came back from their run together."

Carl looks at his hands and asks me, “Why are you telling me this now?”

I stutter, not sure. I’m getting scared. I’m thinking Carol isn’t here because she doesn’t think she can be anymore. I’m afraid she’s—

"Where's Sasha?" Glenn breaks my train of thought.

"Went to find Bob a few minutes ago," Tara answers.

"Bob's gone?" Maggie asks.

Rick gets up.

"Carol and Daryl are out there, too," I tell him when he’s at the door.

"What?! How long've they been gone?"

"I-I'm not sure,” I admit. “Daryl just left to find her."

Rick grits his teeth like he wants to yell. "Stay here,” he says, very carefully. “Don't open the door for anything. Tyreese.” He’s already following him. “I need the rest of you to stay here case we don't come back."

I stand rigid, watching them both draw their weapons and leave. The door slams closed behind them and I flinch. Carl breaks away for Judith when she starts to cry. I start pacing along the benches.

"Oliver?" Maggie says at some point. "Sit down, sweetie. You'll only drive yourself crazy gettin' worked up like this." She touches the back of my hand — it’s hard to let her do that, but I do, and I'm nodding, about to sit and wait and _not_ drive myself crazy getting worked up, but then the doors swing open, and Sasha, mad with anger, storms into the church.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oliver got his hat tightened!
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	37. Season 5 ~ Four Walls and a Roof, Part 1: Damned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: A little gory.

"Stop..."

Sasha marches across the church, a whole hurricane trailing behind her, which is actually just Rick and Tyreese. The door creaks closed behind them. No Carol or Daryl or Bob.

Sasha squares up to Gabriel.

"What're you doing?" she asks him, voice low, dangerous. Gabriel stares at her. Slowly, he walks towards her, bible in hand. " _What are you doing?_ " she repeats. "This is all connected. You show up. We're being watched. And now three of us are gone."

Gabriel looks around desperately. "I... I don't... I don't have anything to do with this."

Sasha flashes her knife.

"Don't!" Rosita shouts. Abraham holds her back.

"Put it away!" Rick growls.

"Who's out there?" Sasha ignores them. "Where are our people?"

"I don't have anythi-"

" _WHERE ARE OUR PEOPLE?!_ "

"Please?" Gabriel begs, stumbling back. "I don't have anything to do with this. I—I..." Sasha walks away, shaking her head.

"Why'd you bring us here?" Rick asks.

"Please?" Gabriel begs, holding his hands up. "I... I—I—"

"You workin' with someone?"

"I'm alone. I'm alone. I was always alone."

I get this feeling like I believe him. I don’t know why, only I do. I know what alone is. I know the weight of the word. And that weight was in his voice.

"What about that woman in the food bank, Gabriel?" Rick insists. "What did you do to her? _'You will burn for this'_ , that was meant for you. Why? What're you gonna burn for, Gabriel?" Rick grabs him by the shoulders and shoves him into a wooden railing. " _What?_ What did you do?!"

He lets go.

Gabriel bursts into tears.

"I lock the doors at night," he sobs. "I always lock the doors at night. _I always lock the doors at night!_ They started coming. My congregation. Atlanta was bombed the night before — they were scared, they were — they were looking for a safe place. A place where they felt safe. And it was _so early!_ It was so early. The doors were still locked, you see? It was my choice. But there was so many of them, and they were... trying to pry the shutters and banging on the sides and s-screaming at me. And so, the dead came for them."

We all stare at him, horrified.

"Women," Gabriel says, nodding. " _Children._ " He sobs. "Entire families calling my name as they were torn apart. Begging me for mercy. _Begging me for mercy_. Damning me to Hell. _I buried their bones._ I buried it all. The Lord sent you here to finally punish me." He collapses and looks up at Rick. "I'm damned! I was damned before. I always lock the doors. _I always lock the doors!_ "

Sasha puts away her knife. Gabriel cries. I think he’s an idiot. I think he’s been alive longer than he should have. But he’s around, still, and he’s got to deal with it just like the rest of us.

Suddenly, there’s whistling. Glenn rushes to the window. The whistle is a drone and it makes my skin crawl. "There's something..." Glenn trails. "There's someone outside lying in the grass!"

Everyone rushes to the door. Sasha first, not stopping when Rick calls out to her across the driveway. I'm at the door behind him.

"Bob!" Sasha screams. I see him — just like Glenn said; lying in the grass. There's something else. The dark is playing tricks. Oh, no...

"His leg," Maggie mutters.

Something is shuffling in the dark.

"Walkers!"

"Get Bob inside! Take care of him!"

Rick, Maggie, Glenn and I rush to shoot the dead. I catch one a second before it’s going to get Rick and he stumbles back, nods to me, then keeps shooting. And then there’s more gunfire. Not from us. _Aimed at us._ There’s a hard yank on my shoulder and Michonne is shoving me back inside and yelling. Carl is pulled inside too. From outside, Sasha is yelling and Tara is grunting. Bob cries out.

More gunshots.

"Get inside!" Rick roars, shooting into the tree-line. " _Go!_ "

Bob is lugged past us, barely not dropped as he’s set on the floor by the altar. His missing leg is bandaged at the stump. Rick marches across the building, slamming the doors closed behind him, out of breath.

"They've been watching us," he growls.

"Bob," Sasha sobs, "what happened to you?"

"I was in the graveyard," he groans, hissing through teeth. "Somebody knocked me out. I woke up outside this place — looked like a-a school. It was that guy. Gareth. And five other ones. They were eating my leg right in fronta me, like it was nothing, all _proud,_ like they had it all figured out."

This very odd feeling overcomes me then. Since Terminus, since _before_ terminus, the notion of... _that..._ of cannibalism, hadn’t occurred to me once. It was hard enough to get used to dead people eating people, but _living_ people, too?

My stomach lurches. I cover my mouth and shut my eyes.

"Did they have Daryl?" Rick asks. “Carol?"

"Gareth said they drove off..."

And then, all of a sudden, a great crack splits open my whole life.

Bob becomes breathless.

"He's in pain," Sasha pleads, "do we have anything?"

"I think there're still packets in the first aid kit," Rosita offers.

"Save them!" Bob hisses.

"N-no," Sasha argues.

" _Really!_ " he growls, sobbing. He struggles to sit up. His hand comes up to his collar, and he pulls it across to show a deep, nasty bite. The whole world stares at his shoulder. "It happened at the food bank," he explains.

"It's okay." Sasha is crying. "Bob..."

"There's a sofa, in my office," Gabriel offers. "I know it's not much, but..."

Sasha looks up to him and nods. "Thank you."

"I got him," Tyreese says.

My stomach is wringing itself out. I get up quickly and rush for the supply room opposite Gabriel's office. It's too loud in the altar. The air is too stale. Judith it crying.

"C'mon," Carl says, opening the bathroom door — I didn’t even know he’d followed me. “Here, before you yack all over the place.”

I double over the toilet, mumbling things I don't realise as I shove the seat up. Then it all comes up in a wave of tomato bits and sweetcorn and squirrel, all mixed up in a yellow and brown porridge. Soon, my stomach and throat are raw. I feel Carl rubbing circles into my back but have to push his hands away. He apologises. I'd be embarrassed if I weren't busy yacking up more.

"I am tryina save yours! Save everyones’!"

"They're comin' back!"

"To what? Picked over bones?! _Let go of my hands!_ "

"Abraham!"

"Hey, stop!"

The yelling outside doesn’t go unnoticed, Carl and I are just too pre-occupied to do much about it right now.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait!" Glenn growls. "Hey, hey, hey! You stay. You stay and help us. And we will go with you."

"No."

"It's not your call, Rick. Abe, you stay, help us."

"Half a day. Come high noon were tail-lights. No waitin' for the other damn shoe to drop."

"And we will leave with you."

"Twelve hours, and we go."

I'm focussing on not collapsing. Carl is cooing to Judith, who he must’ve gone and got at some point. I think I'm empty, so I sit back against the wall and shut my eyes. Carl gets me toilet paper to wipe my face. I’m wheezing, so I take my inhaler. When I settle, finally, I mumble something that’s supposed to be a thank you, dropping tissue into the toilet. It doesn’t flush so I just push down the seat.

"Sorry."

"Don’t be," Carl says, handing me a water bottle and more tissue. I wipe and rinse and gulp as much of the water as I can. Carl sits opposite me, struggling to settle Judith. She’s grumpy and overtired.

Bob cries out from inside Gabriel's office.

Carl shakes his head. “I knew, what they were,” he admits. “I saw... There were bodies, in cages. Hung up on hooks.”

“They had these rooms...”

“Like shrines,” he says for me.

We are quiet for a while.

“What was all that outside?” I croak. “Somebody leaving?”

"Abraham,” Carl whispers. “He wants to get Eugene to D.C. Doesn’t wait around for Carol and Daryl. They’re gonna wait ‘til morning, but he only agreed to it if Tara, Maggie and Glenn go, too."

I shake my head. Splitting us up, after everything we went through to find each other. Carl just says, “I know. I know.”

We sit in the office bathroom scowling at the floor. Everyone seems settled now, muttering quietly amongst each other. It sounds like they’re planning something.

I look up at the wall in the office, covered in drawings; Moses in his basket floating in a reedy stream, a bush on fire, colours unrealistic and child-like. I know some stories, but I didn’t retain a lot. There’s a framed script on the wall.

 _And let us not grow weary of doing good_  
For in due season we will reap if we do not give up  
Galatians 6:9

I get mad, so mad I kick the wall opposite me. Both Carl and Judith startle and I feel terrible immediately. "Sorry."

Judith starts thrashing in Carl’s arms.

"It's fine," he mumbles, trying to settle her, but she screams. "Come on, Judy, shh."

I shake my head. “She doesn’t like being held like that."

Carl sighs. "Just take her."

I say no. I say, “Don't give up so fast. Here, put your arm under her feet, so she’s got something to make her feel safe."

Carl looks unconvinced but tries it anyway. It works.

"If you want, try tapping your feet,” I suggest, smiling. “Makes her tired, and if that doesn’t work, do this..." While he gently drums his toes on the floor, I reach over and stroke my thumb all the way from the bridge of her nose to the tip. She shut her eyes after the third time, and is fast asleep after the fifth.

Carl looks dumb-struck. I smile, then sit back and look at the floor, and that miserable gap in my chest comes back again.

“They’ll come back,” he says, like he can read my brain, like he’s been combing around inside my flesh and bone and sinew all night.

"She said she'd go."

I say it and it hurts so much worse than just thinking it.

"She said she would and I thought... I thought I'd have more time. I thought she’d change her mind." This stupid hiccup blocks up my throat and my voice turns heavy and thick and wet. "She didn't even say goodbye to me. She just left."

I wipe my eyes on my knees.

"They'll come back, Oliver," Carl says.

Sometime after that, Rick comes in to find us. "You two alright?" He stands in the doorway and takes in the three of us huddled in the bathroom cubicle. I must look like a mess, crying and smelling like sweat and vomit.

"Yeah," Carl answers. "Oliver's just not feeling very well."

"I'm fine," I lie, wiping my face.

"Everything okay?” Carl asks. “We heard arguing."

His father nods. He motions us out of the room. "Listen. I gotta talk to you both. We've got a plan..."

* * *

 

Later, once the plan is set, and it’s clear that if the timing of tonight if off my a minute, everyone will die... Rick pulls me aside, handing me extra ammo which I stow with my cigarettes. Rick doesn’t notice them. He looks anxious.

"Wanted to ask you a favour,” he says, “I was wondering if you'd let me use your machete, jus' for tonight. Figured you won't need it with your extra rounds. Plus, I made a promise..."

I hand it over.

Soon, Rick, Michonne, Glenn, Maggie, Tara, Sasha and Abraham leave the church, ready for the Termites. The rest of us hide in the darkest part of the building, Gabriel's office, in silence, and we wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll admit, I only wrote Oliver rushing off to throw up so that I didn't have to write the dialogue where everyone was talking. I feel dirty...
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	38. Season 5 ~ Four Walls and a Roof, Part 2: Lions, Zebras, and Termites

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dealing with the Termite infestation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: v gory...

Time passes like chalk on a chalkboard. Every second is worse than the last. The silence is messing with me again, but luckily, soon, Carl starts tapping a finger against his gun grip, beating a slow, faint rhythm that helps — which helps.

Judith's awake, looking around like she thinks we’re all acting very strangely, then her eyes snap to the door, and we all hear the footsteps.

I remember reading this book on African wildlife — I’m really into African wildlife; it’s something not a lot of people know about me. Another thing is that I have this mild obsession with zebra. I don’t know, I just do. I think of this thing I read that zebra foals can do: In a big herd of hundreds of zebras, one foul can identify their own mother out of all of them just by her stripes. It’s crazy. And what’s even crazier to me is that I can do that, too, with footsteps. Like a zebra's stripes, each person’s footstep is similar, but completely unique. It's the slight scuff of Rick's boots that give him away. Carl, much like his father, walks with a scuff, though it's lighter. Michonne walks with a determined, confident stride, and Tyreese has heavy, distinct beats that have recently started squeaking, and Carol has a very light and precise step, much like my own.

These footsteps, however, I don’t recognise.

I get this feeling like a zebra foal that's just stumbled into the wrong herd — a herd that happens to be a pride of lions. I glance at Carl next to me, heart bashing in my chest. He looks at me and nods silently.

They're breaking in. We all take out our guns, aiming at the office door. Bob lays still and weak on the couch. Tyreese tries to settle him. Gabriel cowers behind his desk, clutching prayer beads and mumbling. Judith is glancing around the room, nervous. Then the church doors crack open and the Termites are inside. We listen to them make their way along the chapel.

"Well, I guess you know we're here!" I get a hunch of who this guy is: Gareth, the Termite leader. "And _we_ know _you're_ here. And we're _armed,_ so there's really no point in hiding anymore..."

They’re getting closer.

"We've been watching you. We know who's here! There's, Bob — unless you put him out of his misery already. And Eugene. Rosita. Martin's good friends Tyreese and Oliver. Carl... Judith."

Not all of this adds up in my head. How would Gareth know Martin ever even met me and Tyreese? Confused, I look at him accusingly. Tyreese is wincing. _He didn’t do it._ I know he didn’t. _He didn’t kill him._

"Rick and the rest walked out!" Gareth yells. He's at the altar now. They all are. "With _a lot_ of your guns. Listen, we don't know where you all are but this isn't a big place, so why don't you stop this now before things get more painful than they need to be?"

The door handle rattles. I grip my Glock tighter, finger hovering over the trigger.

**_They should be here by now._ **

The rattling stops. In the distance, I hear the office door rattling, too. My palms are sweating. Beads run down my temples and clump my hair. I’m shaking and holding my breath.

"Look," Gareth says, "you're behind one of these two doors and we have more than enough fire power to take down both. Can't imagine that's what you all want." Several guns are clicking and it makes my spine crawl.

_They'll be here. They'll be here._

"How about the priest?!" Gareth asks. "Father?" Gabriel's shaking. "If you help us wrap this up we'll let you walk away from this. Just open the door and you can go. You can take the baby with you. What do you say?"

Gabriel’s hands stay entwined in his beads, his eyes shut. Someone steps in front of the door — I see the shadow under the gap.

Then Judith starts crying.

Carl collapses across the room for her.

"I don't know, maybe we'll keep the kid," I hear from outside. "I'm starting to like this girl." The shadow under the door walks away. "That's your last chance right now to tell us you're coming out," Gareth orders. Rosita glares Gabriel down.

"Are we done?" I hear Martin.

Gareth must agree. "Hit the hinges..."

Two silenced bullets fire in the chapel, and with them, two heavy masses hit the floor outside the door with loud thumps and clatters. I perk up, horrified.

"Put your guns on the floor...”

"Rick, well fire right into that office! So you lower you — _GAH!_ " Gareth's howl and the silenced bullet make me gasp. I think for a moment he's been killed, but I'm proven wrong when I hear his laboured breath and heaving whimpers.

"Put your guns on the floor _and kneel!_ " Rick repeats.

"Do what he says!" Gareth yelps. A pool of blood is growing under the door frame. It touches the end of my boot and I step aside. "Martin, there’s no choice here!"

"Yeah, there is...”

" _Wanna bet?_ " Abraham asks.

I hear the shuffling and kneeling and grunting.

"No point in begging, right?" Gareth asks breathlessly.

"No," is all Rick answers.

"Still, you coulda killed us when you came in," Gareth rasps. "There had to be a reason for that?"

"We didn't wanna waist the bullets."

"We used to help people. We _saved_ people," Gareth begs. "Things changed. They came in and... _agh!_ " I push away any part of me that feels sorry for him. _You’re either the butcher or the cattle._ "After that?" Gareth goes on. "I know that you've been out there—but I can see it. You don't know what it is... _to be hungry._ "

Nobody says anything.

"You don't have to do this — we will walk away," Gareth offers, "and we will _never_ have to cross path's again. _I promise you._ "

"But you'll cross somebody's path?" Rick’s gun cocks. "You'd do this to anyone, right? Besides... I already made you a promise."

I hear my machete being drawn. Realisation hits me over the face. The screaming comes in shock-waves. Worse than the silence. It doesn't stop. Not for a long time. All we can do is listen to the bludgeon.

Tyreese rushes to the door. I try to snatch his arm but he’s too strong. He grabs Gabriel by the collar. "Gimmie the key!" He does. Then the office door cracks open and the rest of the Termites are being slaughtered. I hug myself. Tyreese's whole body grows ten feet then shrinks shrinks shrinks to ant size.

Finally, everything goes quiet. I just hear laboured breath and coughing and dripping and I try hard not to think that we were the lions all along.

Tyreese moves away from the door and I get a look at Gareth. He’s torn at Rick’s feet, diced into a heap. I see brain and eyeball and fingers and teeth. Martin’s throat has been shredded. The rest of them, either shot or slashed or scattered across benches and the floor. Michonne retrieves her katana from one of the bodies. Sasha is in another world, staring at the blood on her hands.

"It coulda been us," Rick says.

“Yeah,” she whispers.

Glenn and Tara are in the middle isle, Maggie standing beside them behind a bench, all watching. Gabriel leaves the office, looking like he doesn’t recognise this place or the human species. Rick walks into the room, shortly followed by Abraham and Sasha. Abraham checks on Eugene and Rosita while Sasha sits with her brother and boyfriend. Rick puts his hand on my shoulder. I jump and step back. He tries to get me to look at him, but I don’t. I watch Gareth. Rick says my name. My eyes snap to the blood splatter across his white faux collar. I try to say something, but end up mumbling nothing. I nod, then look him in the eye.

Rick goes to his children.

I'm leaving the office, my legs moving of their own accord to a bench that isn't covered in blood. Gabriel stands ahead, and he looks at the others.

"This is The Lord's house..."

"No," Maggie whispers, "it's just four walls and a roof."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should be, like, a little less death and gore in the next chapter. Some. But not as much as this one.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	39. Season 5 ~ Four Walls and a Roof, Part 3: 8:25AM

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Brief mention of non-consent.

That night, horror keeps us awake until the early hours of the morning. Rick says there's nothing we can do about Daryl and Carol except wait. He tells me we can’t afford to worry about _what if_ s, and that I should rest. The bodies were moved outside, left for the walkers to clean up should any come by. Out of Carl and I, Carl is the first to pass out, with the help of my thumb running down his nose because who knew it would work on him, too? It takes me longer to fall asleep, but when I finally do, I dream of the prison.

I dream of the attack, only it’s my head that is chopped off, not Hershel’s. _"I know. We all. Can change."_ And then I’m at home in Lorton, sitting at the back door, only it smells of baked pecans, like the grove, and Gareth is there, all torn and diced and butchered.

When I get scared, he tells me, _“I won’t eat you.”_

And I say back, _“Are you sure about that?”_

And he laughs this painful scared laugh at me. He keeps saying things I’ve heard him say before: _"No point in begging, right?" “We used to help people.” “You don't know what it is... to be hungry.”_ And then he starts saying things other people have told me: _"You’re not here, and neither are we."_ And then I’m suddenly in school and Gareth is gone. It’s the last day of school before we broke up for summer. I know so because the Browning twins in senior year had pulled their last and most brilliant prank and the school hall was filled with pink foam and confettii, so we eat our lunch in our classrooms. I stuck with Penelope, trying not to draw too much attention from one of the boys who had been picking on me and following me home with his friends for months prior.

At some point, I notice that nobody has a face. A lot of things happen after then, but not a lot of it makes much sense. I know that it isn’t entirely bad either, not for a little while at least, until it does get bad because somebody tells me that Judith is lunch. That freaks me out. I find the kitchen but I can’t find her. All the steaming pots on the stove are rattling and when I lift up lids Judith screams from every one of them. And then I'm not at school anymore. I'm in the utility room.

_"Claimed."_

I’m grabbed. I’m held down. There are hands and grunting and I die. And when I wake up I’m screaming...and someone is grabbing my arms. I thrash at them, scratching something. I hear it rip, feel skin under my fingernails, scream, “No!”

And Carl screams back, “It’s me!”

Frozen, I grip tight to his jaw and the scab on his cheek is bleeding again. _Shit._ I did that. I’m shaking. I push myself away and collapse against the alter table, knocking over empty cans and wine bottles.

Carl tries again to touch me but I shudder and shove him away.

"No, no, no."

"Take your inhaler."

I hunch over and cry.

"Oliver..."

“ _Don’t touch me!_ ”

"Okay," I hear. "Okay... I won’t. I’m sorry.”

I curl up on the floor and wait for the tears to stop. I hear someone asking what’s wrong and Carl explaining I’ve had a nightmare. I wish Carol was here. Someone puts their hand on my back, Rick I think, and Tyreese tells him not to, and I just keep saying, "No. No. No." I’m sat with. Tyreese tells it was just a dream, like he always does. I try not to disagree. And after long enough I sit up and wipe my face and sniff the silence away.

Carl and Rick are staring at me and my cheeks turn hot with embarrassment. I apologise. I explain that I’m a moron only it comes out as, “Happens. Sorry.” Satisfied, Rick leaves to keep watch and a while after that Tyreese goes to check on Bob. Carl stays, a small gap between our shoulders.

"Wanna talk about it?"

I don’t reply because I don’t want to.

“Carol and Daryl aren’t back yet,” Carl says.

Pins and needles attack my leg as I stand up. I sit at the nearest bench. Carl joins me. I worry for minutes and minutes until I go mad. They wouldn’t have stayed out this long unless something was wrong. I lean into Carl’s shoulder. He glances at me, as if checking I meant to, then looks ahead.

Sasha peers out of the office. "He's asking for y'all..."

Rick carries Judith across the room, glancing at Carl and I to join them. Maggie, Glenn, Michonne and Tyreese follow.

"All of you," Sasha insists.

Abraham, Rosita, Eugene, Tara and Gabriel, who were all hanging back, come inside too. Bob lays stiff on the couch. His eyes are heavy and his smile hasn't gone away. I wonder if it ever will.

Everyone says goodbye to him. His fever is bad, and his breath is coming shorter. "You'll always be with us," Maggie tells him. "You're a part of us." She kisses the back of his hand and he grins. I look at Gabriel’s clock and watch the minutes roll over, feeling heavy and sad and calm. Rick has his hand on the back of Carl’s neck. I tells us, “Go on outside, both of you,” and we make to leave.

"Rick," Bob murmurs just as he’s about to hand Judith to Carl. "No. Don't. Let her stay... I trust her." Nodding, Rick sits with him, Judith in his lap.

"I'll be right outside," Sasha tells him, leading us out of the room. When we’re outside, Carl hugs her and she almost laughs, but she's crying. After a few minutes, she goes back inside the office when Dad tells her Bob is asking for her. We wait and wait and wait, and at 8:25AM, Bob is dead, and Sasha puts a blade through his skull.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy reading.


	40. Season 5 ~ Four Walls and a Roof, Part 4: Grimes

A little later in the morning, I keep watch outside. I don’t know when, but the Termites wrote the letter _A_ on the church wall in blood. I keep looking at it, thinking of the door in Terminus, and the train freight, leaving it wherever we go like a brand on a herd of cattle.

Tara joins me outside at some point. She doesn’t talk for a while, and I can tell she’s nervous, and I think she’s waiting for me to say something, but that’s not happening for anything, so finally, she caves.

"I know you know,” she says. “And... I’ve been meaning to talk to you about it.”

I look at her, knowing what she’s talking about — knowing that she was the ponytails, the woman in the Governor’s militia.

“I’m sorry,” she adds. “I totally am. Please believe me. I get if you don’t, but—”

“I believe you,” I say.

She looks at me like she might burst into tears. “You do?”

“We don’t need to talk about it,” I say flatly, looking at the floor and shrugging. Tara looks at the floor, too, and nods.

“Are you sure?”

Again, I shrug.

“Because I get it if—”

“I’m sure. Swear.”

She inhales, exhales, then holds out her fist. I look at it. Then I look at her and frown.

“Err...”

"Pound it."

Awkwardly, I do, and Tara has this great and awesome look on her face like she thinks the world has been set right again. I shake my head and tell her, “Take over from watch?”

She wasn’t expecting it, but nods anyway. “Alright.”

* * *

 

Tyreese has started digging graves. Plural, because he wants to bury the Termites too. Bob is already in the ground — Sasha just got done finishing his cross. The rest of us gather on the front porch of the church while Abraham and his crew, who are now Glenn, Maggie and Tara as well as Rosita and Eugene, load their things onto the bus.

Rick is handed a road map.

"Here's our route to D.C." Abraham says. "We'll stick to it as long as we're able. If not, well... you got our destination. Once Eugene gets to the big-brains left up there, things're gonna bounce back. This group should be there for it. _You_ should be there for it."

"They will be," Maggie smiles.

"Yeah," Michonne agrees, "we will."

"We will," Rick says.

Abraham nods and turns on his heel. "Let's go!" Eugene and Rosita follow him on the bus. Maggie and Tara and Glenn start hugging people. Glenn hugs me first, smiling when he pulls away. His smiles are easy. His hugs, too. Then Maggie is hugging me almost immediately after Glenn. She calls me sweetie and I don’t say anything. I just hug her back. Tara bumps my fist a few moments later, telling me to look out for everybody. I tell her the same and manage not to let my voice break.

Finally, they board the bus. The engine rumbles alive and pulls out of the parking-lot. I keep my eyes on it as long as possible, even after the tail lights have disappeared through the trees.

“You comin’ inside?” Carl asks me. I shake my head and pull my beanie off, tucking it in my back pocket. Ty has started digging again and Rick is helping him.

“I’m going to see if they want a hand.”

Carl nods. I reach out and take his hand, squeeze it, then he leaves to go back inside. I go to the graveyard.

"Oliver," Rick says from the grave he’s just started, wiping sweat from his brow and leaning on his shovel.

"Spare anywhere?" I offer.

He nods, motioning to the one by the fence. I grab it and get to work, starting a grave just adjacent to Tyreese.

"I never asked how it was for you,” Rick says after a minute. “Getting to Terminus."

Tyreese doesn’t stop digging. "It killed me."

"No,” Rick says, “it didn't..."

We keep digging. Rick doesn’t ask anymore and I’m glad. Then, finally, all the graves are dug and Rick tells me I can go. I'm panting and sweating and wheezing while I climb out of the grave. I sit and take my inhaler and catch my breath for a minute.

"Oliver," Rick says when I get up. "Take it in, would you?" He hands me the road map and I carry it across the parking-lot, ignoring the _A_ on the wall as I go inside.

Carl is sitting at the bench we seem to have claimed as our own. He's put Judith in her basket and is feeding her formula. I take a seat behind them, pulling my beanie on, and with some conviction, I unfold the road map and lay it along the seat next to me. Carl notices this and reads over the back of his bench.

We read the message left across the Atlantic Ocean.

 _SORRY, I WAS AN ASSHOLE._  
COME TO WASHINGTON.   
THE NEW WORLD’S GONNA   
NEED  RICK GRIMES

"Did Abraham write that?" Carl asks.

“Guess so.” I shrug, following the thin, red, pen line tracking their route to D.C. Sure enough, around twenty or so miles before it ends, it goes right through Lorton.

"Thinkin' about home?" Carl asks.

Nonchalantly, I shrug.

With Judith now fed and content, he climbs over the bench and sits on the other side of the map. He searches for Lorton and finds it quickly. “Oh, wow. Right next to the ninety-five. We’ll go right through.” Luckily, he decides to stop talking, but he is looking at me, looking at me like he _wants_ to say something.

"What?" I ask, a little irritated.

Carl shrugs. “You should ask him, my dad.”

“For what?”

"To go home and put your parents down."

This had never occurred to me. Not once.

Carl hesitates. “Do, uh... Do you want me to ask him?” I’m nodding before I give myself permission to. Carl smiles. “I can't make any promises though. Dad probably won’t let you. But even if he doesn’t, we could do it one day, especially if we really stay in Washington. One day together."

I think of those words. _One day._ One day we’ll go to The Grand Canyon. One day we’ll put my parents down.

"One day," I whisper.

* * *

 

The weight of losing Bob today and Carol and Daryl still not being back is making the air stale. Gabriel stays in his office mostly. Sasha and Tyreese keep close. Rick makes plans with anybody who will listen, which is mostly Michonne, or Judith who we’re all taking turns trying to keep awake so she doesn’t stay up all night later. We also take turns keeping watch outside. Rick takes first watch until the early evening, and Carl is supposed to keep watch after that until it gets dark, which I eventually decide to join him for, but somehow our casual conversation about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn dissolves into a pretty heated kissing affair in which we spend our time tangled under the banister seeing who has to come up for air first, until the sun starts to set and Michonne ends up catching us. She takes over, inevitably, but doesn’t seem very upset at us. Still, Carl and I go inside with our tails between our legs. We sit in quiet and avoid the weird looks Rick is giving us.

At some point in the night, Gabriel goes out and speaks with Michonne. As the door shuts, I look at Carl. He’s falling asleep, head rolling onto my shoulder — I wonder inside my head if it’s normal for teenage boys to smell of baby formula.

Gabriel returns, looking startled. He walks away from the door quickly.

"What is it?" Rick asks.

"We... She... heard something."

Rick’s up and crossing the church. He disappears outside and Carl and I are up now, too. We stand at the door and hear talking, and then someone is limping across the parking lot. I think he’s a walker but he says, “Hi,” and I aim my gun at him. He’s got skin dark enough it’s hard to see him and tight, curly, black hair, wearing a colourful zip-up, flannel, and khaki pants. Quickly, he puts his hands up. “Whoa, whoa, don’t kill us.”

Rick, Michonne and Daryl are close behind him, and tell us to put our guns down. Daryl looks furious.

"Where is she?” I stutter out, but nobody hears me.

"Come inside,” Rick orders. “Change of plan."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oliver getting a fist pump from Tara was my goal for this fic. I can stop writing now *he says... as he doesn't stop writing...*
> 
> Happy reading.


	41. Season 5 ~ Speak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Carl's head for this one.

Daryl and Carol saw a car out by the road last night. They followed it.

“Why?” Dad asks. “ _Dammit_ , Daryl, things got bad here.”

“They took Beth.” We stare at him. Daryl explains how Beth was taken by someone, a few days after they escaped the prison. “The car had a white hospital cross in the back window,” he says. “Car Carol and I saw, las' night, it was the same one.”

“And she's still alive?” Dad asks.

Daryl nods. “It—”

“Yeah,” the new guy says. His face is long and bony, his body lanky and tall. He looks about eighteen and is a living bruise, like he’s spent his whole live being beat up. His colourful clothes are a size too small — when he reaches out, his arms poke from his sleeves.

“I was with her at Grady for a while,” he goes on. His accent is from somewhere in Virginia. I grew up in North Dakota, mostly, so we don’t sound much the same, but still, I’d know. “She helped me escape. If it weren't for her I'd still be inside.”

“What is your name?” Sasha asks him, like she’s tired of him already.

“Oh. Noah.” He offers his hand to shake but she doesn’t reciprocate. Her brow is creased and her dark brown lips are held tight against her teeth. Noah doesn't know this, but this is about as friendly as her expression is going to get, given the circumstances. His hand sinks by his side and he clears his throat.

“I'm sorry,” Gabriel says timidly, “who is Beth?”

“She’s part of our group,” Tyreese tells him. “Lived with us at the prison. Good little lady... a friend.”

Dad grits his teeth, mulling over something in his head. He turns to Daryl. “Where is she? And Carol?”

Daryl opens his mouth to answer but again, Noah cuts him off.

“We were tryina get away from the officers back in Atlanta. But Carol got out of the building before us. Ran out into the road and got hit.”

“She got shot?!” Dad barks.

“No, no, no, she wasn't shot... she just got hit by a car.”

Oliver is so wound up that Noah steps back from him. Dad looks angry. Daryl pushes Noah aside and tells him to shut up.

“Look, just is they took her,” Daryl says. “It’s a hospital. Grady Memorial. So she'll be gettin' cared for.”

“So we can go and get her,” Tyreese says hopefully.

Daryl just shakes his head. He looks at Noah, then us. “Noah here says she'll work for them, that all their patients do. Said that's why Beth stayed after she bashed up her wrist. But, it’s bad news. They don’t let anybody out unless they’ve paid off their debt.”

There’s an uncomfortable pause.

“Hey. What's it like down there?” Dad asks. “Atlanta.”

Daryl shrugs. “Not much better than we left it. Less walkers on the streets, though.” He looks up around the room, at the blood and the missing people. “What happened here?”

“Gareth.” Dad grimaces. “You were right, they followed us. We lost Bob.”

Sasha shuts her eyes.

“Kill them?” Daryl asks.

Dad nods. I see last night play through his memory like it has been all day.

“Glenn? Maggie? The rest?”

“They left for Washington this morning while we stayed and waited for you.” Daryl doesn't say anything. Dad turns to Noah. “Carol and Beth — you're sure they're at this hospital, _Grady_?”

Noah nods.

“Alright, we'll leave in the mornin'...” Dad looks like he’s acting more confident than he feels. “Noah, you can help get us inside? You know their schedule – their routine?”

“Like the back of my hand.”

Dad nods. “Alright, keep talking...”

* * *

 

Later, when the planning starts, Dad is discussing who will and won’t go. Everybody is more than willing to help out. Oliver especially. He pulls Dad aside and asks him in private — I eavesdrop and hear things like, “I owe it to her. I can help.” Of course, I was expecting this. But I wasn’t expecting Dad to agree to it.

“Yeah, you can.”

My jaw locks.

Dad consults Tyreese, who tells him, “He knows his stuff, Rick. I've seen it.”

“It’ll be dangerous,” Dad says. “But if you come, you have to do what we say, _no_ exceptions.”

“Yessir.”

“No one gets left behind,” Dad tells him.

“Yes, sir,” Oliver says. “Nobody gets left behind.”

Dad nods, and I finally remember how to speak again. “Wait, if Oliver's going then—”

“No,” Dad growls at me. “Not you.”

“Dad, that’s—”

“ _Final!_ End of discussion, Carl.”

I look to Oliver, desperate for him to back out of this. He looks away. I think I’ve been hit by a train and I sit back, defeated, and it isn't until they’re all done setting up the plan that I finally get a word in on it all. Oliver is finishing a conversation with Sasha and Tyreese. Dad’s already asked me to go clean the supply room, so no sooner does Oliver sit back do I grab his sleeve and pull him to come with me. Dad and Michonne watch us go but they don’t say anything because I don’t close the door behind us.

“Lamp,” I say, “in the corner.”

Oliver, who had been very quiet until now, asks, “Got a match?”

Using the light from the church, I look around on the corner-table the lamp is sitting on for a box of matches I’d seen before, and hand them to him. Oliver thanks me and lights it up. Together, we order through the mess on the floor for all the weapons we’ve collected, then take things out into the church to the others. This room is kind of where we stashed everything we found from the Termites, somewhere to keep it all until we were ready to sort through.

Oliver and I work in silence for a long time, before the elephant in the room demands to be recognised. We’re both in the supply room again. He puts a hunting knife into an arsenal case — the same knife that belonged to the Claimers.

“Are you mad at me?”

“No,” I tell a switch blade as I push it into a case. “Not at you.”

“Then who?”

“ _Nobody._ Just...” _at everything. At you, obviously, but not at you, idiot. Goddamit, you asshole. You bastard._ Oliver is studying me. I turn away and shut the door for privacy, then keep stocking when I lose my nerve to say anything.

“Tomorrow,” Oliver says, “it'll be fine.”

I push a few machetes into the case. “Great.”

Oliver sighs. “Carl... Man...”

Anger and grief bubbles in my veins. I fold the case and shove it to one side, then turn and tell at him, “Shut up.”

He rolls his eyes and keeps sorting through things.

“Sorry...” I say.

He shrugs. “Whatever.”

He’s quiet for a minute.

“Look, man... I get that I’m not a good boyfriend anymore, but I can’t help it. Things are harder now, okay? Things are just... harder.”

I watch him. “I... I never said that you were a bad boyfriend.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“That’s not something I’d just think,” I insist. “If I thought it, I’d tell you.”

Oliver looks at me like this helps.

“I’m just scared,” I admit. “What if you don’t come back tomorrow?” It’s hard to stop my voice cracking or rising. “You could die. You all could die.”

Oliver sits on his knees. “If I don't do this, I'll never forgive myself for letting her go.”

“You didn't _let her go_ _!_ ” I yell. “She killed Karen and David. She left you!”

I cross a line. I know it. Oliver’s eyes look very far away and he sits back. I’m sorry. I’m angry. He doesn’t say anything. Even after what I just said he isn't fighting back.

“ _Speak_ ,” I tell him, and he doesn’t so I fling a magazine across the room. He flinches. “Oliver! Speak! _Speak!_ ”

He. Doesn’t. Say. A word.

“Don't you even care?”

I think back two years ago. Mom and Dad were fighting again. “ _Speak,_ Rick! Speak! _Speak!_ ” I was eating my cereal and getting ready for school. “Sometimes I wonder if you even care about us at all!” and Dad left for work after that — it was the day he got shot and the world started to end.

Oliver watches me.

“I... I'm sorry,” I croak. “I don't want to lose you again.”

“I’ve made it this far, haven’t I?”

I roll my eyes.

“Hey...” he whispers. “Trust me, okay?”

“Okay,” I say, and I ask him to kiss me, if he wants to, and he does. And then I ask him to sit on me, if he wants to, and he does. And we go on kissing like that. And at some point a million years later, I say, “I love you...” and we go on kissing. I don’t know how long for. I don’t know how many more times I tell him. I just know that after long enough, exhaustion takes over and we fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	42. Season 5 ~ Crossed, Part 1: No More Empty Promises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver’s perspective again...

I wake up and the supply room is bright and warm, and there’s a blanket covering us — I don’t know who put it there. I spend a while lying there on the floor with Carl before everybody wakes up.

“You should bring back corn,” he mumbles, “if you find any.”

I smile into his hair. “Tell you what? I'll bring you back so much corn you can drown in it.”

“Sounds like a sweet way to go.”

“Punny.”

After a few minutes, he starts to fall asleep again. I listen to the calm air outside. The sun hasn't fully risen over the horizon yet by the light.

I remember something.

“Carl.”

He jolts slightly.

“I'm gonna go find Daryl, back in a bit.”

“Want me to come with?”

“Nah.” I kiss his forehead. “I'll be back soon.”

I pull off my flannel shirt and fold it under his head.

“You'll come back,” he mumbles.

“Promise.”

* * *

Daryl’s not inside the church so I slip out the front. He’s siting at the bottom of the steps with his crossbow across his knees. He looks over his shoulder. I wave awkwardly. He makes a quiet grunt of a greeting, then turns back around.

 _I should just go back inside._  
_**No!**_  
 _He doesn't want me out here bothering him._  
 _**Don't you dare. Do it, Oliver.**_

I take a deep breath and plan what I need to say. Daryl starts getting uncomfortable, looking back at me and frowning, and he's about to say something, probably ask what I want or tell me to find something to do, but I blurt out: “I found these a few days ago and thought you'd maybe want them if you want... if you want them.”

**_Ten out of ten performance, man. Very impressive. You'll go far. The youth of the apocalypse looks so promising._ **

Daryl grimaces, watching me pull out the squashed packet of Morleys from my pocket.

“Here.”

He takes them. “Where'd you get them?”

“Outside Terminus,” I answer, catching my breath. “That car, by the shack. Sorry they're pretty crushed.”

He shrugs. “Ain't complainin'.”

He lights one. It smells like my dad. I turn away, almost missing it, catching it so late that it becomes awkward... Daryl just gestured for me to sit. I do, joining him on the bottom step, forearms on my knees the same way he’s sitting.

“You want one?”

I don't mean to look so shocked. Daryl gestures the pack to me. I shake my head, worried I look lame but I didn’t plan this so I don’t know what else to do. Something of a smirk flickers over his face, but it's gone before I can tell.

“You haven't had any yet.”

I don’t answer because it wasn’t a question.

Daryl snorts. “Why?”

“I was gonna.” It occurs to me that I'm mimicking his accent, so I stop and clear my throat. “I didn't have a lighter.”

He shows me his.

Again, I shake my head. “I’ll get in trouble.”

Like he doesn’t care, he says, “Won't tell. Ain't my place to. They're yours, after all.”

“Err... No, I'm fine. Thanks.”

He smokes, pocketing the pack and his rusty old lighter. “Guess that’s why she likes you so much.”

I dip my head, kind of flattered really, but it's tough to be flattered when I’m so worried about her. “She's sort of like...”

“Family.”

I nod, scratching at my nose.

“Yeah, to me too,” he admits.

Minutes pass after that. We aren’t very talkative people. But still, out of us both, Daryl is the one to start up the conversation.

“Found another pack back at Atlan'a. Right before we found Noah.”

“How'd you meet him?”

Daryl smokes another drag. “Moron robbed us.”

**_Brave move._ **

He takes another drag.

“My dad used to smoke Morley cigarettes,” I pipe up. “He quit though, after a while. Smell never really went away though.” I'm not really sure why I’m telling him this, so I shut up.

“My mom smoked them, too.” Daryl is nodding. “S’what she used to set our house on fire. Killed herself.”

I clamp my teeth uncomfortably.

“Ain't nothin'. Just what happened,” he adds.

“Yes, sir.”

Again, that fleet of a maybe-smile happens. He rubs his mouth and starts chewing on his thumb. “Y'always callin' me that,” he remarks. “Patrick did, too.”

My chest pangs like usual.

Daryl takes a last drag, head dipped, then snubs out the cigarette on his kneecap. He lights another. Daryl is kind of fascinating, once you get to thinking about it. Patrick was definitely on to something.

“Know what it's like,” Daryl says. “Lost a brother, too.”

I recollect the various things I’ve heard about Daryl's older brother in my time living with there guys. _The Legends of Merle Dixon,_ Patrick and I used to say to amuse ourselves: how Rick was forced to cuff him to a roof, how he cut his own hand off to escape, and attached a giant metal blade to it, and how he sacrificed his own life to save everyone after the first attack. Admittedly, and I would never say this, but Merle is somewhat of a superhero to me.

“Guess you've heard a lot about him.”

I smile politely.

“Probably not all good stuff,” Daryl adds.

I'd heard about what else Merle did: working for The Governor, kidnapping Glenn and Maggie, almost sacrificing Michonne.

“Ain't sayin' he was all good,” Daryl admits. “Damn, he was an asshole. Left me with our dad when I was jus’ a kid, 'cause he beat him — asshole beat me, too. And then, when he came back, I went right back to him. Followed him like a sheep. He was my brother.”

Daryl scratches at the hair on his face.

“After you lost him,” I say, “the first time over winter, were you glad when he came back, when you found each other?”

“Well, I didn't punch him round the face, if that's what you mean.”

I do well not to roll my eyes.

“It weren't no fluffy hugs and kisses,” Daryl explains. “We were in Woodbury. Governor put us in a ring to fight each other, with a bunch of walkers on chains so we couldn’t get out. Rick and the others showed up, and once we got out, Merle wanted to leave and I followed him all over again.”

“He was your brother,” I say.

Daryl gives me a small nod, watching me like he’s figuring something out. I watch a robin bird hop around on the ground ahead of us, picking at twigs and weeds. It flies away. “What about you?” I hear. “Why'd you attack Patrick when you first saw him?”

I shrug at first, honestly finding it difficult to remember. “I was in a weird space. After so long on my own, it took a while to remember how to be around people again.”

“Musta been tough.”

I rest my chin across my arms and sigh, swaying side to side and tapping against my kneecap. “Second worst time of my life.” I don’t think I’ve ever told anybody that. “But I'm here now. I got to see my brother again, for a little while.”

“ _Hmff._ ” I don't know what that means for sure but I think it's along the lines of: _“I understand.”_

We start talking about Carol. I ask him if she told him why she left, and he says, “Yeah, she did.” And I should take this as my hint to stop asking questions now, but another slips out.

“Is she okay?”

He scratches the cut on his eyebrow. It's still healing, all dark and sore. “You're gonna ask her yourself.” He looks right at me. “She's sorry. And she's scared — may not seem it, and she's a tough lady, but she's hurting. Cares about you. Cares about you so much it's hard for her to keep up with it, 'specially after Sophia and the girls.”

“Did she tell you about them?”

“Didn't need to. They ain't here.”

“You knew Sophia, didn't you?”

He glances at me, and even though he says nothing, I hear his _yes._

“Carl told me about her,” I add.

Daryl hums his grunt this time. It occurs to me that out of Daryl and I that maybe it's me who is more talkative. I'm not sure what to do with this information. It's a little of a shock, really. First time it's ever happened. In the end, I don't say anything else either.

A trail of ants scurry between my feet under the porch. I stand up, stretch. The sunrise has turned the sky blue again. A few clouds are glowing silver linings through the tree-line. I see Venus, still there. ‘Haunting me, teaching me,’ whatever. I look away.

“Thanks for the cigs,” Daryl pipes up.

“Yes, sir.” I go back inside. Rick is awake, feeding Judith. He greets me and asks where Carl is. I point to the office. Rick nods. “You two alright? I heard, uh, you know... the arguing.”

I trip over my own feet, remembering it.

“You two alright?”

I nod honestly.

“Gotta look out for each other,” Rick goes on. “For all of us.”

I nod again and he turns back to his daughter. When I'm inside the office, Carl is still asleep. Fast asleep. I almost can't bring myself to wake him. I decide the least I can do, given recent events, is wake him up nicely this time, so I kneel down beside him.

“Hey... wake up, Grimes.”

He murmurs something, but doesn't wake up, so I kiss to his cheek, and he sighs and looks at me, then, gently, he pulls me to lie down next to him. I’m good with this, and I’m good when he decides to touch my chest. I’m even comfortable enough to ask him why he wants to, and he just shrugs and says, “Feels nice, sometimes.” It does feel nice. I look up at the ceiling and try not to move too much — try even harder to think about boring things like soccer games and encyclopaedias and coffee, but then he’s kissing me and I’m so worried of getting carried away that I have to start singing the Italian National Anthem in my head to pace myself.

 _Fratelli d’Italia_  
_L’Italia s’è desta_  
 _Dell’elmo di Scipio_  
 _S’è cinta la testa_  
 _Dov’è la vittoria_  
 _Le porga la chioma_  
 _Chè schiava di Roma_  
 _Iddio la creò_

_Stringa moci a coorte_   
_Siam pronti alla morte_

_L’Italia chiamò_   
_Stringa moci a coorte_   
_Siam pronti alla morte_

_L’Italia chiamò, si..._

It’s not working — Carl’s putting my hands under his shirt and I’m a flooded boat. Feelings like this are strange, especially now, but it’s easier not to think about it because of hormones and skin and kissing. Still, after a little while, I ask us to stop, and we do.

“I don’t want us to get caught.”

“Yeah,” he says.

“Sorry,” I say, “I just...”

“I know,” he says.

I look at him. “I’m sorry.”

He looks at me. “You don’t gotta be.”

Then, outside in the chapel, we hear a loud crack and we startle. The noise splits through the church again, louder now. And again.

“What the hell?” 

We get up quickly. I grab our hats and follow Carl out of the office. It's Sasha, hacking away at a bench. Daryl and Tyreese are talking over by the organ.

“What's going on?” I ask.

“Jus' getting ready for leaving,” Ty says. “Putting up some extra protection outside.”

We’re told to help Noah outside on boarding the shutters. He tells us, “We don't have another hammer other than the big black guy's.”

“Tyreese,” Carl says.

Noah turns to him, wiping his face and extending his hand to shake. “Noah.”

Carl shakes his hand. “Carl.”

Noah tilts his head. “Wait, then, who's Tyreese?”

“Oh, uh, he's the, uh, 'big black guy',” Carl explains awkwardly.

Noah smiles, turning to me and extending his hand. “You’re Oliver, right?”

I nod.

“I'll go get something,” Carl says, heading back inside. He comes back quickly with a few hacked off bench legs that he says Sasha let us have. I grab a wooden board from the floor and hold it up, and one at each end of it, Noah and Carl bash nail in until the board is held up securely. We repeat this process on the other shutters. Daryl gets busy lodging another sharpened organ pipes into the ground at the entrance — the same defence mechanism we had it at the prison.

“Are you gonna take the cross, too?” Gabriel asks him.

“If we need it.”

We board every window. Michonne, Rick, Daryl, and Noah stock up the truck Daryl and Noah brought back last night from Atlanta. Tyreese, Sasha and I stick back to keep Gabriel, Carl and Judith company.

While the others talk amongst themselves, Carl and I sit and listen, making the most of the last few minutes together, until finally, Rick comes back and whistles for us to go. I’m hugging Judith. Michonne hugs Carl, and then Rick does.

“We'll be back soon,” he tells him.

“I know.”

Rick leaves to join the others outside. Carl turns to me. I hand Judith to Michonne, then steps across and swallows Carl up in my arms. Judith starts crying. I do my best to stop my face from scrunching up. He kisses my forehead and tells me, “I love you.”

I whisper it back, and, “No more empty promises,” and then I leave the church and help Rick shut the doors, hearing Carl, Gabriel and Michonne on the other side, boarding up after us.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if the anthem was wrong, any Italian viewers. I got it from the internet and I don't know if it's completely accurate, as with the rest of the Italian stuff. All from Google translate. It's like almost always wrong. Sorry if it's ever distracting. 
> 
> P.S. FINALLY GOT RID OF THOSE STUPID MORLEY CIGS! I also want more Momma Michonne.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	43. Season 5 ~ Crossed, Part 2: You Don't Get Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mostly Oliver. Last lil bit is Carl.

Today doesn’t feel good, but it feels important, so there’s not much I can do about it while Rick drives us, Daryl in the front with him, with Noah, Tyreese, Sasha and I riding in the back — it’s dim and rumbly and uncomfortable, and I focus on the small window above Noah’s head to save off car sickness.

Tyreese and Sasha talk quietly, and at some point, Noah decides to talk to me: “So, how’d you wind up with these guys?”

I look at him. “Was looking for my brother. Guess, they found him first.”

“I’m looking for family, too.” He gets up and climbs across the bumpy vehicle to sit beside me, grunting and rubbing his leg. “How long were you separated? You and your brother. And your pa.”

“Pa?” I ask.

Noah points at Rick.

“Oh...” I shake my head. “Rick’s not... Carl — He’s my boyfriend.”

Noah blinks. “Oh.”

I grin.

“My neighbours were gay,” he tells me. “But... they were girls, so, uh, yeah... I don’t know where I’m going with this.”

I nod politely, and Noah laughs at himself. I figure it’s my turn to think of what to say, but I decide not to tell him that I don’t think I’m gay, or that just because I’m a boy with a boyfriend, it doesn’t mean he has to talk to me only about other gay people. I don’t tell him that I’ve decided I like him because he’s trying so hard and I appreciate that, or that he reminds me of this kid from a sit-com I used to watch on TV, or that he's got this strange way of standing that makes him look like he’s permanently slouching and shorter than he really is, when he's actually _superhumanly_ tall — we must be close to the city by the time I think of something to say to him.

“What happened to your leg?”

Noah sighs and looks at me. “Oh, man. I’m so glad you asked me that,” he says, “I was trying not to ask you anything or say anything until you did it next. I thought I wouldn’t make it.”

I find this funny.

He moves on quickly. “My leg was messed up for a while. It’s what wound me up at the hospital. By I messed it up again escaping the hospital. Me and Beth had to climb down an elevator shaft, but I fell. Would’ve never made it out without her.”

“How is she?”

Noah's eyes crinkle at the corners. “I'm not sure...” he tells me. “But I know she's alive.”

“And Carol? They're gonna help her? They — They _can_ help her?”

Noah nods. I would feel relieved, but he is scowling. “They won't let her go though,” he explains. “Not 'til she works off her debt.”

I nod because I know this.

“How long will that take?”

Noah pulls up his pant leg, exposing the long scar he was rubbing before. It stretches up the back of his calf, even further than he's showing me. “This was a couple hundred stitches and some antibiotics,” he explains, pulling his pant leg down again. “I was there for almost a year and still had more than that to go.”

I swallow.

“That's how it works at Grady,” Noah explains. “You work off what you take, what you use, what _they_ use to save you. _Save._ If you can call it that. And once all that's done, then you can go.” He grimaces at the floor. “Trouble is... I never seen it happen like that. Everything costs somethin', so the debt jus'... keeps growing. But the wards, some of them don't just make you pay with work around the hospital. Girls mostly, you know? You hear it. You _see_ it. And you get the living shit beat out'a you if you try to stop it.”

I shiver.

“You don't get out,” Noah says. “Not unless you _get out_.”

I have this feeling like a balloon filled with cement only the cement is thoughts of Carol and Beth being hurt or hurting themselves to leave.

“We'll find them,” I say. “We'll get them back.”

* * *

 

In Atlanta, we watch over the hospital for a few hours. There are guards on the roofs and inside the building, mostly, and some out on patrol in their cop-cars. Like Noah said, they're on a schedule. Once we're satisfied, we creep into a warehouse a few blocks away and clear it quickly.

“At sundown, we fire a shot into the air.”

The plan is carefully laid out.

“Get two of them out on patrol,” Rick goes on, displaying the plan in a drawing he's made on the craggy cement floor with his knife, mapping hallways and floors and operating rooms and offices. “Then once it's dark enough that the roof top spotter won't see us, we go. We'll cut the locks on one of the stairways — take it to the fifth floor. I open the door, Daryl takes the guard out.”

“How?” Tyreese asks.

“Daryl slits his throat,” Rick answers. “This is all about us doing this quiet — keepin' the upper hand. They're not expectin' us.”

Tyreese doesn’t like this plan and it’s not only me who’s noticing. Daryl is watching him, like figuring out a pattern.

“From there, we fan out,” Rick goes on, oblivious. “Knives and silenced weapons. We need to be fast.” He draws a few crosses onto the map. “Tyreese, Sasha. Take them.” A few more crosses. “Daryl, Oliver. You take whoever's in the kitchen. I got Dawn.”

Dawn is the officer who runs the place.

I'm looking at Tyreese again. For a man who took down an entire herd with nothing but a hammer once, he looks terrified. I look away.

“If they're smart, the rest of them'll give up then,” Rick is saying. “Then it'll be six on three — seven on three once we get a weapon to Beth.” Noah says Beth’s broken wrist was healed enough she was using it last time he saw her. Carol, on the other hand, is going to be too weak to help fight.

“Thirteen on three,” Noah points out. “The wards'll help. The good ones. Once they know what they're fighting for.”

“That's best case,” Tyreese says. “What's the worst case? All it takes is one of those cops goin' down the hall at the wrong time. Then it's not quiet. All-hands-on-deck. We’re talking about a lot of bullets flyin' around.”

“If that's what it takes,” Sasha says.

“It's not,” Tyreese protests. “If we get a couple that're cops. Alive. Out here. We do an even trade. Theirs for ours. Everybody goes home.”

 _Shit,_ I think, _that's actually not a bad plan._ By the look on most everyone's faces I'd say they think the same.

“Yeah I get it. And it might work,” Rick agrees. He squares up to Tyreese, voice dropping. “But this will work.”

Tyreese shudders. I’m hesitating, too. I’m thinking that if a fair trade works it would mean no blood shed on either side, and I've got to admit, I like that idea more. Daryl pipes up in Tyreese’s defence: “You say this Dawn, she's just tryin’ to keep it together, right?”

Noah looks at him. “Trying and doing are two different things...”

“You take two of her cops away, what choices does she have?” Daryl asks. “Everybody goes home, like he said.”

* * *

 

“Pick one... You need to learn how to defend yourself. We can teach you.”

“Defend myself? They said they'd go.”

“They were liars, and murderers.”

“Just like us.”

“We protected ourselves, Gabriel. They wanted us dead. You're lucky your church has lasted this long... You can't stay in one place anymore. Not for too long... And once you're out there, you're gonna find trouble you can't hide from. You need to know how to fight.”

“Machete...”

“Good choice, but, you — you're not holding it right. You gotta be able to drive it down. ‘Cause, sometimes their skulls aren't as soft, and you need to be able to...”

“I'm sorry. I need to lie down.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy reading.


	44. Season 5 ~ Crossed, Part 3: I'm Saving My Family

Gunshot at noon. Daryl, Sasha, Tyreese, and I watch from the roof of the warehouse while Rick and Noah stand in the alleyway below. Rick quickly hands him the gun, and Noah darts towards the street. At the same instant, Rick is back inside the warehouse, running up to the roof to meet us.

“Talk to me, Oliver.”

“I see him,” I whisper, glaring down at the road. Rick is beside me. I point. We watch Noah stop on the sidewalk and peer around the wall. He turns around and glances up at us, waiting for our signal, and we wait.

“They're coming.”

“You sure?” Rick asks me.

“Yes.”

We raise our arms. Instantly, Noah hobbles as fast as he can back towards the warehouse. Not a moment too late, because the cop-car is coming around the block. All of us duck out of sight and I hear Rick let out a short tense sigh of relief.

Noah shoots another bullet into the sky, and the car screeches the next block, heading directly for the warehouse. Tires screech as they fly after him. We're on the bottom floor now, at the back entrance of the building, hidden and peering around the wall to watch the car swing to a halt in front of Noah. He hits the hood and collapses. I curse under my breath, but Noah gets up, a little worse for ware, but alright.

Two police officers get out. One is a pale woman with a loose dirty-blond bob. The second officer is bald, tanned and tall. Both guns raised.

“Put it down, Noah!”

“Put the gun down!”

Noah pretends to try and run, then gives up.

“Hands up. Turn around.”

The bald officer puts a zip-tie around Noah's wrists. “You let me know if it's too tight, okay?”

_He must be one of the Good Guys. **  
Doesn't mean I trust him.**_

“Thought you were smart, Noah,” the woman says. “You think we wouldn't hear you?”

“Where're those rotters you were shootin' at?”

Rick gives the cue —two fingers up— and then the five of us ambush them.

“Hands,” Rick orders.

“What do you want?” one officer urges.

“Whatever this is, we can help,” the other too.

“You do what we say,” Rick tells them, “we don't hurt you. Now turn around, put your guns on the floor, and kneel.”

They hand over their weapons. Sasha and Daryl tie their hands. I cut Noah loose. He rubs his wrists — they’re raw and scarred, like this has happened to him before.

I catch Tyreese looking at Lizzie's knife when I sheath it again.

“We need to talk,” Rick tells the officers. “Water if you need some, and food.”

“Mind if I ask you somethin’?” the male officer asks. “The way you talk. The way you carry yourself. Were you a cop?”

Rick doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to.

“Believe it or not, I was too,” the officer says.

“That's Lamson,” Noah says. “He's one of the good ones...” and then another cop-car speeds around the alley and drives right for us. Bullets fly. I try to shoot through the windscreen but it’s bulletproof. There's a hard wrench at my collar and Rick is dragging me out of the way. We take cover behind a crate, and a back-window smashes from either mine or Tyreese's bullet, and then another window goes, revealing the stocky, bald policeman hunching for cover inside, pointing his rifle at us.

We fire in frenzy. Lamson and the woman climb into the back of the car and the driver is covering them, and then tires scream and he hits the gas and they escape along the back-alley. There's a white cross in the rear-view window. We crash after them, sprinting as fast as we can. Sasha, the sharp shooter, manages to flat-out a back tire. Rick brings us to a slow, knowing they won't get far now.

We're in a parking lot, I think, only it's hard to tell. Debris is scattered everywhere, burnt vehicles and singed buildings, and the dead. I smell them before I see them. Have to breathe through my mouth. They’re everywhere — not up and ambling but melted under the sun. There’s a water tower, on its side, reading: _EVAC HERE_.

A car door clicks and then Lamson and the woman run across the courtyard and down another back-alley, still bound.

“Through!” Rick orders, breaking into a sprint. “Follow me.”

Leaping over hungry corpses, with my machete patting against my leg, it's the grunt I hear first, sudden. I look over my shoulder as I run, then skid to a stop when I don’t see any sign of Daryl behind me. Desperately, I look back to Rick and the other's, but they're already too far ahead to yell for them.

_No one gets left behind._

I curse under my breath, fumbling on my feet, then swivelling around and heading back.

**_Pookie better be fucking dying right now._ **

I skid to a stop when I see the third cop, escaped and gone unnoticed, now pinning Daryl down and choking him. There are two walkers lying beside them, snapping their jaws. If I shoot I could miss, but if I step in, I might as well shoot myself. They don’t know I’m here. They fight and fight and fight. I get close enough to shoot a walker but Daryl's hand blocks me — he snatches the walker’s face, gouges his fingers through its eye sockets, and pulls its whole skull from its shoulders. Blood pours and spinal cord and flesh go flying, and Daryl smacks the officer across the face. He hits him again, and I have a clear shot again, so I shoot the other walker through the eye. Both men startle. I aim at the officer and he puts his hands above his head.

“Okay,” he says breathlessly. “You win asshole.” He's swaying, shifting his weight, like he might keel over. And then he's laughing. “You're just some kid. They got you doing their dirty work already, huh?”

When he stands up, my gun moves with him. He's tall. I have to look up at him.

“You're not gonna shoot me,” he tells me. “You're jus' as scared as the rest of us—” He stops talking when I rack my gun.

“Oliver,” Daryl growls.

Rick is running across the courtyard.

“Oliver,” he says, “drop the gun.”

I do, and Daryl subdues the cop, tells me, “Three's better than two.”

I catch myself grinding my jaw — it’s something my dad used to do when he was angry, so I stop and nod. Rick is watching me, dipping his head. I don't know why.

“We got Lamson and the woman,” he says.

“Good,” Daryl says.

Rick whistles, and everybody else meets us some seconds later.

“What happened?” Tyreese asks.

“Daryl almost got jumped,” Rick replies. “But we took care of it.”

Tyreese nods and looks at me. “Take your inhaler, kiddo.”

* * *

 

Inside the warehouse, the cops are given water and some food. While Tyreese, Sasha, and Daryl keep an eye on the cops, Rick collects Noah to go over the new plan.

“Your friend, what's his name?” a cop asks at one point. None of us answer, so she asks again. “Look, I need to talk to him, your plan's gonna get me and my friends killed.”

“We're gonna make it work,” Sasha says.

“It would work if you had different cops to trade,” she retorts. “Dawn's running Grady to the ground, a bunch of us want her out, and she knows it. Pretty sure she knows we want Lamson to replace her, too.”

“Dawn doesn't know that,” the third officer says.

“She might. She's smart, so there's a good chance you can't make this deal work, and that'll leave us all dead. But if you let us go. We'll take care of Dawn ourselves, and we'll let your friends go and this is over.”

I’m grinding my jaw again.

“No...” Lamson pipes up. “We're not gonna do that.”

She glares at him. “Do you _want_ to die?”

“No. I jus' need you to shut up right now.” Lamson looks at us. “You can make this work. But you gotta be able to talk to her.”

“Noah told us all about her,” Sasha explains.

“I've known her for eight years, man,” Lamson says. “I know this woman. And my only interest is peaceful resolution, not dying, and sleeping in my bed tonight. So please. Let me help you? Please?”

Daryl turns. “Hey, Rick. You're gonna wanna hear this.”

* * *

 

Dawn will be reluctant, but apparently, if we persist, she'll cave — we get ready. At some point, Rick asks to speak alone with me, so I accompany him downstairs into the big empty warehouse floor.

“You're gonna stay here, with Sasha and Tyreese: help them with Lamson and the others.”

Reluctantly, I nod and watch him. He seems to find it hard to look at me, but again, I don’t know why.

“Oliver, earlier, in the courtyard... were you gonna kill him?”

I think of how Rick took Carl’s gun. I think of how he made him farm and play soccer and make friends, and I think of when Carl went outside the fences with Hershel, what he told me.

“No,” I answer. “I didn't have to, so I didn't.”

Rick looks at me and nods.

Moving on, I hand him my machete. “Here,” I say. “You'll be needing it more than I will. Really — They'll make you give up your gun, sure. But they might let you keep a machete. And... you use it more than I do.”

“Have you got your gun?”

“Extra magazine in my pocket, too. And my knife.”

“Thank you,” he says, fitting the machete around his waist. Daryl, Noah and Tyreese are coming down. They go over the plan with Rick one last time. I’m not needed here, plus, I need to use the bathroom, so I wish them luck and head back inside. I find a wall inside far away from prying eyes and go, then, when I'm upstairs in the main room, I realise we're short of two people.

“Where's Sasha and Lamson?” It takes me a little while to ask. I already got the woman a bottle of water when she'd politely asked for it, since she couldn't do it herself.

“They went upstairs,” she tells me. “Lamson said something about spotting a walker that he knew.”

I fasten the lid and set the bottle aside. “Do... err — Do you want anything else?”

“No, thanks.”

“You could untie us,” the guy says grumpily. I ignore him. I sit back on the balls of my toes and use a nail I find on the floor to scratch tallies of four over and over on the floor. The lady looks at him, then looks at me.

“Oliver, right?”

I glance at her without moving my head.

“I'm Shepard,” she says, then motions to the other officer. “He's Licari.” I don’t say anything, so she keeps talking. “That Rick guy, he your dad?”

I shake my head no.

“The Redneck?”

Again, I shake my head and place the nail down on the floor, then flick it across the room with my finger. Licari watches it roll across the cement. It rings softly.

Shepard swallows. “Where're your parents, Oliver?”

I look at her. Her eyes are big and brown.

“Died,” I answer.

And she says, “You're alone?”

And I shake my head.

Shepard sits back, annoyed. She doesn't believe me. She's frowning at her lap and I'm watching her do that, and then I'm watching Licari, and when Shepard looks up at me again, her expression is soft like it was before. “How old are you?”

“Fifteen,” I say, and I wonder if I should ask how old she is but I decide against it because she’s shaking her head.

“You're too young to be in a place like this.”

“There's no point, Shepard,” Licari bites. “He's already too far gone.”

I don't know why, but hearing that hurts. Shepard must notice. “What are you doing here, Oliver? They're only gonna get you killed.”

I get uncomfortable and stand up and walk away. Before I get to the door for upstairs, I glance over my shoulder at her. “Ma'am, with all do respect, I'm here to save my family.”

My hand touches the door, and I'm about to push through, only there’s a loud smash from upstairs. It occurs to me that I should move, or step back, but I don't because my body has turned to stone. And then...

“Shit.”

...something hits the door from the other side, heavy and violent, and there’s no way for me to brace myself — and I’m thrown across the room. The pain is explosive. I skid to a stop on my face, and curl up on the floor. Every bone in my body screams. Someone is running past me. I think I'm going to black out, and then I do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy reading.


	45. Season 5 ~ Coda: One Second and it’s Over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver for most part, Carl right at the end.

Lamson didn’t shatter all the bones in my ribcage, but it feels like he did. It hurts to breathe and for the most part it hurts to move at all. Tyreese hands me a damp rag to hold against my face, then goes to tend to Sasha’s head wound — Lamson knocked her out shoving her into the window.

Rick went to get him, but isn't back yet.

Daryl, crouching in front of me, says something.

“What?” I ask.

He motions to my arms, so I lift them, only I stop because it hurts. Daryl pulls his crossbow off his shoulder and lays it beside me, then reaches over and hold my arms up for me. He is very gentle — I don’t mean to find this surprising. He waits for me to stop wincing.

“Cough.”

“Why?” I grunt.

He doesn’t answer, just waits, so, gritting my teeth, I cough — it turns into a groany yelp when my ribs seize up. Daryl lets me drop my arms, sitting back and chewing on his thumb. “Y'ain't dying, so that's something. Looks like you got a few cracked ribs. Can't do much 'bout 'em 'cept help the pain.”

He grabs the orange duffel bag. It’s nice to see it again, even with the Termite blood stains. Daryl hands me some pills from a small white and blue box, then some water. I drink.

“That'll help,” he tells me. “Cracked my ribs like this before, more than once. You gon’ be fine. Might just have a few more war wounds.”

“Like I don’t have enough.”

“Least you gonna heal,” he says. “Here — make sure you keep breathing normally though. If you need to cough, you go ahead and cough, otherwise you’ll g’on and get yourself an infection.”

“Thanks,” I say.

“Tough sonova bitch.”

I laugh small-ly.

“You, too,” I say.

He turns to the others. “Y'alright?”

Sasha nods, holding something while Tyreese tends to her forehead. There’s a gunshot not far away. We listen for a long time, exchanging worried glances, until a car parks outside the building. We take aim immediately, and to our relief, Rick comes in. He comes straight to me, crouches, and takes my shoulder. When I gasp he lets go. He looks worried.

“Gave him some pain meds,” Daryl says.

“I'm okay,” I say.

“How 'bout you, Sasha?”

She nods.

Rick talks with Daryl privately. I can't make out their conversation but by their expression I know that Lamson’s dead. Eventually, the two come back over.

“He was a good man,” Shepard says. “He was attacked by rotters. Saw it go down.”

Rick laughs flatly. “You're a damn good liar.”

“We're hanging by a thread here! He was attacked by rotters — that's the story.”

“You said the trade was a bad idea,” Daryl says. “What changed?”

“Lamson was our shot.” She's afraid. “It's this or you go in guns blazing, right? With three of your men injured already, two of them _kids_... You don't want that.”

“This is some bullshit you're spinnin' if things go south,” Daryl growls.

“I know!” she barks, then calms down. “I know, the good ones, from the bad. Let us help you?”

“What 'bout you?” Rick asks Licari. “You wanna live, how much?”

“Dawn's afraid she'll look weak in front of us,” Licari explains. “Thinks it'll tip things against her. Well... it will. She'll see this trade as a rip off if she thinks you took out one of our guys, so it's a good thing Lamson got hitched by rotters.”

 _“Shepard, Lamson, what's your twenty?”_ We look at the walkie-talkies over by their supplies. _“_ _I need status on that gunfire, do you copy? Licari, do you copy? Does_ anybody _copy?”_

“It's her,” Shepard says.

“Gimmie that,” Rick says.

Tyreese hands it over.

Rick looks at it, then up at us. “Get ready.”

* * *

 

Rick told Dawn we had her officers and wanted to negotiate a trade, and it was enough, because two officers have been sent out to find us on the top floor of a parking lot. This will be where the negotiation will take place. Shepard and Licari know their colleagues' route, so it’s simple for the rest of us to find a place to keep watch while it all happens.

Rick, alone, but guarded, down on the top floor of the parking lot a block over, is waiting for the officers to arrive, and Sasha, Tyreese, Daryl, Noah, Shepard, Licari and I are up on the roof of the parking block in the building next over, hidden out of sight. Daryl and Noah have been tending to the officers. Tyreese and Sasha are talking about decisions and Terminus and Martin. He confesses to her what happened, how he said he killed him, and that he didn't and that maybe he should have. He says he keeps thinking about it, and he keeps remembering when they were kids, how much Sasha would follow him around and copy everything he did, that, after everything that happened to them both, maybe it's only because nothing's really changed, and maybe that isn't a bad thing.

“You're still the same,” Sasha tells him. “And that is good. But I don't think I can be. Not anymore. Not anymore.”

I watch Rick through the scope of Daryl’s rifle — I have to squint very hard. There are some old cars and truck parked around, one with a pink shopping bag tied to the antenna, flapping against the Georgian breeze.

“They're coming,” I say, spotting the cop car driving down the street. Tyreese and Sasha watch through their rifle scopes. Daryl hurries over, switching with me roles with me. The car turns into the parking lot, drives up. I grab Shepard's talkie. “Rick, they're headed to you.”

_“Okay. Copy that.”_

I'm back at the wall, peering over. All I see is his blurry figure and the cop car parking ahead. Officers get out. I think they aim their guns but I can't be sure without a scope. I just squint. There’s talking and at some point Sasha shoots down a walker, and finally, the officers go back to their car.

“What now?” I ask quietly.

“They radio in.” Daryl glances at me. “We follow them to the hospital.”

* * *

 

Inside Grady, two cops are leading us through long, clean hallways. Lights overhead flicker, making the room feel slanted, like it’s moving around my head. By the second or third floor, I’m already struggling. By the time we get to the fifth floor, my ribs are throbbing. But we stop climbing and Rick takes the lead through a door and along a corridor. Carol and Beth are waiting at the end of it, with Dawn and several other Grady residents.  

Beth cut her face in two places, and her right hand is cast-up. Carol’s in a wheel chair, bruised all over.

“Holster your weapons.” Dawn wears a cop uniform, neat black hair in a bun, and her face is stern.

“Yeah.” Rick complies. “You, too.” He takes Shepard while Daryl takes Licari — taking them along the corridor. The rest of us follow. “They haven't been harmed,” Rick adds.

“Where's Lamson?” Dawn asks.

Shepard says, “Rotters got him.”

Licari says, “We saw it go down.”

Dawn's face is very blank. “Oh... I'm sorry to hear that. He was one of the good guys.” She gives a little nod. “One of yours for one of mine.”

“Alright.”

Licari is taken forward by Daryl first, and in exchange, Carol is pushed by another officer, who is also carrying her supply bag. Daryl brings her back safely, and before she's even fully stood from her wheelchair she's holding me — I'm wincing into her shoulder, burying my face there, and she mumbles something to me but I don't catch it, and then I pull away quickly and face everyone.

Dawn brings Beth forward and swaps her for Licari. Beth and Rick hug, and hope becomes me for a moment, because they're turning to us and walking into our fold again, after so long.

“Glad we could work things out,” Dawn says.

“Yeah,” Rick mutters.

Beth isn't crying. She doesn't. She takes my hand in hers and squeezes it, and I'm thinking about how much I've missed her and her poems, and she’ll see her sister again, one day, in D.C. like Eugene said, and everything will work out the way it's supposed to.

“Now I just need Noah, and then you can leave.”

The air hardens. We all turn to look at her.

“That wasn't part of the deal,” Rick says, marching back.

“Noah was my ward,” Dawn explains. “Beth took his place and now I'm losing her so I need him back.”

“Ma'am,” Shepard tries, “please.”

“Shut up!” She's just killed herself. Dawn really just killed herself. “My officers put their lives on the line to find him. One of them _died._ ”

Noah's about to relent, and I scowl at him, and Daryl grabs him and pushes him back. “No,” he hisses. “He ain't stayin'.”

“He's one of mine — you have no claim on him,” she says.

“The boy wants to go _home,_ ” Rick growls, “so you have no claim on him.”

“Well then we don't have a deal.”

“The _deal_ is done!”

“It's okay,” Noah barks, barging forward.

“No,” Rick yells. “No!”

“I gotta do it,” Noah says. He gives his gun to Rick.

“It's _not_ okay,” Beth says.

“It's settled,” Dawn says.

“Wait!” Beth rushes forward and hugs him. Noah’s crying, holding her tight — her feet leave the floor for a second.

Dawn watches. “I knew you'd be back.”

Beth stares at her. I don’t know if I’ve never seen so much rage in such a small space. She breaks away from Noah and stands in front of Dawn. “I get it now,” Beth says, and something small glints in her hand, slipping from inside her cast, and then she stabs Dawn through the shoulder.

Dawn’s gun goes off. Then again. Beth hits the ground. People are yelling. Dawn’s begging, and then she’s dead. There’s blood on me. My face. My... chest.

“Hold your fire!” Shepard roars. “It's over! It was just about her. Stand down!”

I get heavy, all of a sudden. And then I’m on the ground. People’s hands are on me. Yelling. “Ohh, no, no, no!” “Help him!” “Help him, please?!” “Bring him — this way!” “Stay with me, Oliver.” “Don't you die on me!”

* * *

 

 _No matter how many people are around._ _Or how clear the area looks._   
_No matter what anyone says._ _No matter what you think._   
_You are not safe._ _It only takes one second._   
_One second._ _And it's over._

...

“Abe, drive around the back.”

“Would, Glenn, if I could find the damn place.”

“There. Right there.”

“Hooo _ly_ dick hole...”

“Where is everybody?”

“Something's not right. Carl, stay here with Judith.”

“But—”

“We'll be back.”

“Be careful.”

...

“ _Beth!_ ”

...

“Dad? Oliver!”

“Kid...”

“Where are they? I didn't see them come out.”

“Fifth floor. Go.”

_Beep._

“Dad?”

_Beep._

“Dad.”

_Beep._

“Oliver...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are you mad at me? You look mad at me. Don't be mad at me!
> 
> Happy reading maybesorry...


	46. Season 5 ~ Pick a Colour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A.N: A mess of a chapter. Basically, Rick’s brain is centred. Oliver’s is italics (it will make sense) and the rest is Carl’s normal first person. Hopefully you get it as you go? Good luck. Sorry I’m shit.

 “You can stay. We're surviving here.”

“No. I'm takin' everybody back there who wants to leave. If you’re people wanna come with us, we leave as soon as the boy is well again.”

“How do you know he will be?”

“He will.”

* * *

 

_Good news, I found the prison again. Bad news, nobody is here. Lori is here to keep me company. I know it’s her because she told me so. She calls me baby and it’s nice. We take a walk together. Outside, there are no walkers_ _. Then we go inside, to the boiler room. We sit and we talk for a while. Lori tells me she comes here to remember what it felt to hold her baby for the first time. I think it makes me sad when I realise she’s talking about Carl. She asks me what it feels like, and I tell her it feels like everything wrong in the world is gone and it's just me and him, and it's safe. I tell her that he makes me feel sempiternal._ _And sometime later I’m sitting on at the desk alone in the room, and the telephone begins to ring._

_I pick it up. “Hello?”_

* * *

 

“We have very limited resources here, Mr. Grimes. There's only so much I can do.”

“I know. I know, but—”

“Look, I got the bullet out. His bleeding’s gone down. It's just a case of waiting. But, if I’m honest, it doesn’t look good.”

“I was shot, before. Took me almost two months to wake up from it.”

“Before. _Before._ We can't keep him here forever — you said it yourself that you're moving on soon.”

“Dad?”

“When the boy is healed. That’s what I said.”

“He might not...”

“No. Dad, I have blood — you can use it.”

“We don't know his blood type. I’m sorry.”

“Son—”

“No!”

“Carl, stop it!”

“He's gonna wake up!”

“I'm going to give him—”

“Get away from him!”

“ _Oof!_ ”

 “Carl — Dammit, son!”

* * *

 

I've never hit a person before — a living person, at least. Walker skulls are kind of like a water melon, so it only takes one or two hits to cave it in. Not like attacking a living person, no. The doctor's cheek bone is so hard I messed up my right knuckle punching it. I don't know how to explain myself. I just lost it. I saw him putting something in Oliver's IV with that syringe. I thought he was going to... I just lost it. Still, damage was done and I have to face the consequences.

The tall hospital bed is cold and hard and I swing my legs under it awkwardly, remembering getting shots from my old King County doctor; mom would always buy me ice cream afterwards.

The doctor tends to my injury, even after the black eye I gave him. I can't look at him; too ashamed and angry and relieved. His office is small and poorly lit, with papers and books strewn or piled on every available bit of furniture, like he spends all his time thinking in here.

He looks at me over his glasses. “It's not broken. The worst case is a nondisplaced fracture, which means you didn't hit hard enough for any bones to move, but they’re pretty banged up.”

I glance at the door. Michonne’s outside waiting for me.

“It’s a shame I can't give you an X-ray or CAT scan,” the doctor goes on, “but I'm fairly sure that in three or four weeks you'll be able to remove the cast and use your hand again. It may be sore and stiff for a while, but just go easy on it, until it's back to normal.”

“Thanks,” I whisper.

He nods, stepping away to rummage through his drawers. I examine my injury. A white cast is wrapped snugly around my hand, hiding the black and blue underneath. When I look up, the doctor is holding four rolls of cast in his hands.

“I found them a few days back on the floor downstairs,” he explains. “I wish I'd found them before. It would've been nice to've given Beth a little colour to cheer her up.” He clears his throat. “But, I guess it doesn't matter now.”

“I don't need decoration.”

“Oh, come on. Pick a colour,” he says. “Plus, you do need it. Beth, in here: I was able to change her cast if it fell apart or got dirty. But if — I mean, _when_ your boyfriend wakes up, it's pretty clear that you and your people are going to be leaving. You're gonna need a cast that won't fall apart as soon as it gets a knock or a bump, something that's going to last through exposure.”

It sucks that he's right.

“So? Pick a colour. Purple, green, red, or Blue.”

I shrug the same shrug that makes Dad yell at me sometimes. “I don't care,” I answer honestly. He doesn’t pick himself, so I point at the one closest to me. “That one. Fine.”

“Purple?”

I shrug.

“Okay,” he says sceptically, but starts wrapping when I give him my hand. “I haven’t been out there. Not like you have. Unless you count a few days at the beginning. Guess nobody cares if boys wear pink anymore. Not back when I was at school. I once got my head flushed for having a pink pencil.”

I don’t say anything so he finishes without talking much more. The cast is heavy, and I get to worrying that I have to live without my right hand for a few weeks, back to square one.

“Erm, thanks for this,” I say, “and, you know... everything.”

“You're welcome.”

“I'm sorry for hitting you.” I almost throw it at him.

He catches it gracefully, nodding. “You were afraid for your friend. I understand. Goodnight.”

“Night...”

“Steven,” he tells me. “Steven Edwards.”

I nod. I’d probably even shake his hand, if mine weren’t fractured. He gives me some pain killers and I almost cry.

“Get some rest,” he tells me, slumping in a chair and picking up an old newspaper. I turn and walk to the door. “You're a good kid, Carl,” Steven says just before I leave. “And I hope Oliver will be okay. I’ll do all I can. I promise. I owe it to her. To Beth.”

I nod and leave.

* * *

 

Daryl and Maggie don’t sleep inside the hospital, but downstairs in Abraham’s firetruck. Glenn stays too by marital default. And after recent revelations on Eugene, nobody is in any rush to go to Virginia anymore. It’s just about waiting for Oliver, for now.

I have been sleeping in a chair in his hospital room, but I come to listening to Carol reading aloud to him. “ _The children fastened their eyes upon their bit of candle and watched it melt slowly and pitilessly away, saw the half inch of wick stand alone at last, saw the feeble flame rise and fall, climb the thin tower of smoke, linger at its top a moment, and then, the horror of utter darkness reigned._ ”

She stops. I don’t move because I’m exhausted. Just listen.

“It's like it's following me,” she says. “Wherever I go, it's always there. It was here, before. At Terminus. The grove. The prison. The farm. The CDC... even before. The smoke never ends. Everything burns eventually, even I have... I burned away a long time ago.”

I've never heard her talk like this. I lift my head and blink sleepily. Carol wipes her eyes quickly. I don’t know what to say for a minute, so I don’t say anything.

“Have you eaten anything?” she asks me. “I’m going to go down and find food in the truck.”

“I'm okay.”

We’re quiet for a moment.

“Carol?” I ask.

She sighs. “Yeah?”

 _Not everything has burned,_ I should say. _Not yet. Oliver hasn't._ _I haven't. Daryl, Dad, all of us. And, you haven't. Not really. You've just changed._

“Nothing,” I answer.

Carol gets up. She’s about to leave but I stand up, my chair scrapes, and she looks back at me. I’m leaning over Oliver, staring at him.

“What is it?” she asks.

I point at his hand. He squeezes it. It happens so suddenly I almost miss it. Carol doesn’t. She rushes over and takes his hand.

“Oliver?”

“Oh my God, Oliver.”

Another squeeze, stronger this time. So strong Oliver's whole hand jerks out of Carol’ grasp. It flexes at an odd angle like some menacing force had reached into his arm and yanked on his tendons, like a puppet. Then his back arches. I stagger back. Carol gasps. And Oliver’s body rocks back down into a convulsion so powerful and violent his IV pole spins across the edge of the bed and I have to twist out the way to dodge it. I don't understand what's happening, because I'm stood up and palming at his shoulders and asking him to calm down, to stop, to tell me what’s happening to him.

“Seizure,” Carol blurts out.

“Help!” I yell, holding him down. “Stop! Oliver, no!” _Not like this. Not like this!_ “Don't hurt. Don't hurt!”

His eyes roll back. All I see is bloodshot white. He’s grunting, something frothing from his mouth, slamming through his seizure. His toes crack. Wires and cables whip and tangle twist between his fingers, and with a sharp _snap!_ one flings out of the back of his hand and blood squirts across my face.

I stagger back. Carol is screaming. And the next few moment are a blur of panic. People are in the room, rushing, shouting. Something clatters, and something else scrapes loudly, and then someone is dragging me towards the exit.

“Get him out of here!” Steven commands.

“No!” I fight. “Stop it, Oliver!”

Steven shouts at me again, fumbling with cables. The blood. It doesn't stop splashing from Oliver’s hand. His bandage, too, starts to bleed.

“Stop!” I scream. “You're killing him!”

“Get him out!”

Dad’s too strong. Even with all my attempts to fight, he lugs me around the middle and carries me out of the room, kicking and screaming, and Michonne is grabbing my face and arms and talking to me and I can still hear it. Oliver's gags and Steven's shouts. Then the door slams closed, and can't hear anything. I keep fighting, wild. Something heavy crashes into me, and something else holds my fists down, and it's Tyreese, my father, Michonne and someone else holding me still. I scream at them and then something pricks my arm, and I'm so angry and afraid and... and... slow. My dad says something... kisses my forehead. I tell him I hate him, only my mouth won't work.

“Carl...” I look at him. I’m crying. “Everything’s gonna be okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will only be temporary. I swear. Also throw back to when Rick screamed, "Stop! You're killing him!" in season 2. Also a throwback to the end of chapter 10/season 4 when Carl told Rick everything would be okay.
> 
> Happy reading.


	47. Season 5 ~ Lori

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First half Carl, second, Oliver.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, all of you reading. You mean the universe to me.

Once I came out of my sedation, Steven explained what had happened. Oliver was haemorrhaging; blood loss — unfortunately, a pretty common side-effect from getting shot is a whole bunch of blood loss.

He went back into surgery. I don’t know what Steven did but I know that Oliver needed a blood transfusion. Nobody knew Oliver’s blood type, so the safest bet was giving him blood from someone with the type O negative, who can give blood to any blood type, but can only receive from their own. Glenn said he had O negative blood — well, he said he was pretty sure he had it. It was the only option we had. He would die or we would live. And he lived.

That was five days ago. Oliver hasn't woken up yet, but he will. He has to. In the meantime, I've gotten used to this place. The people keep to themselves, much like we do, and we split our supplies in exchange for staying and keeping Oliver cared for. I help Steven take care of him, or I’ll help my dad or the others on runs, or when I have nothing to do, like now, I sit in Oliver’s room and read.

Oliver's hospital is small and cosy and clean. Steven said it was Beth's room, before. There’s a big window overlooking Atlanta, a dresser, the bed and bedside, my chair, and the worn, old poster on the wall reading: “Get Well Soon” above a blue clock with _“Now”_ instead of numbers.

I use the corner of my cast to turn the page, glance up, and catch Oliver's Adam's apple bounce slowly — he does that, sometimes, if there’s a small sound or I touch his hand. Steven says it’s a good sign, that he’s in there, at least.

“Want me to read to you?” I ask.

His finger twitches, so I read a few chapters of the Tom Sawyer book that Carol brought, until my dad knocks on the door. He crosses the room, runs a hand over my head, the glances at the empty cafeteria tray on the bedside.

“Glad you ate,” he says, then points. “He doing okay?”

I shrug. “How was the run?”

“They got back a while ago. Got what they needed.”

“Guess they wanna leave even more now, huh?”

Dad frowns. “Maggie does, but she's not going anywhere without Glenn, and he’s not going anywhere until he knows Oliver won’t need him.”

“Abraham?” I ask.

“I don’t think he wants to do anything right now.”

I nod.

“Oliver’s safe,” Dad says, and smiles. “Why don’t you go for a walk? Round the hospital?” He opens the window opposite me. I yawn. “Or, if you’re tired, take my room for a while. Rest.”

I shrug. “Where's Judy?”

“With the others. G’on, Carl.”

I get up, start heading to Dad’s room, but I pass right by, and I start to run — flying through hallways, hurtling past rooms, climbing up staircases higher and higher and dodging around a few people I run across, then I clamber out onto the roof. I collapse to my knees, barely missing a vegetable garden patch, and then I am just lying here, heaving my breath and sweating.

I look at my cast. My hand throbs. I laugh, thinking I’m mad, thinking I’m so exhausted that I could just pass out right here, and I must do, because one moment I’m watching the sky, and then next I’m not doing anything.

* * *

 

_Cold dark sea_   
_Wrapping its arms around me_   
_Pulling me down to the deep_   
_All eyes on me_

_I push you away_   
_Although I wish you could stay_   
_So many words left unsaid_   
_But I’m all out of breath_

_So go, go, go_   
_Get out of here_   
_Go away..._

* * *

 

_Sometimes, through the telephone, I can hear their voices, talking to me, or talking to each other, but if I talk back, they don’t hear me. I’m not sure how much I like it here. The showers and taps don't work right. The water feels like air and it floats like gravity doesn't exist. Cans and jars in the pantry are filled with bubbles that sing when I pop them. Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody was in a jar of honey and David Bowie's Heroes was inside a can of tuna. Barbie Girl was inside of some string beans — I had to throw that one over the fence to shut it up. I usually like to stick to cans of sweetcorn or pudding cups; those have calm and soothing music like Of Monsters and Men and Patrick Watson. Then there’s the books in the library, which are mad — some yell at me when I open them, like I'd been peeking into a girl's locker room, and other books blush and clamp shut and only open-up if I ask politely or compliment them. One book gave me a paper-cut for trying to skip to the end, and another was totally blank. Around the rest of the prison, the furniture moves around behind my back, sometimes — I'll find a lamp outside my cell or a bedside table on the wall or a desk blocking my path in a hallway._

_I keep the phone with me wherever I go, the frayed cable dragging behind me like a tail. Sometimes, if I try to make any calls myself, the cable whips up at the back of my head painfully, but it'll be limp again by the time I look at it._

_I still see Lori a lot. She comes and finds me, talks to me, or sometimes, we don't talk at all. I think I’m a ghost. I think, here, the living are who haunt the dead. I just don’t know what I’m here to teach them._

_Lori hasn’t said anything for a while, and I decide I want her to, so she asks,_ _“How're you today, baby?”_

_“I'm fine.”_

_“Get any calls today?”_

_“A few,” I answer, and then I say, “I want to go back.” And s_ _he doesn’t say anything so I say, “You think I can't do it.”_

_“I think you can do it,” she says._

_“Would you?” I ask. “Go back, I mean. If you could?”_

_She just says, “Baby...”_

_I sigh._

_“I'll miss you,” I say._

_“No, you won't.” She smiles at me._

_“I will...”_

_“Don't look back,” Lori tells me. “Jus' keep walking.”_

_So, that’s what I do. I know that if I look back, she won’t be there anymore, that nothing will, that the further I go, the less I leave behind. Up ahead, just outside the prison, a buck is waiting for me. I reach out. And then, the second I step through the gate, the ground isn’t there and I fall through nothing, spinning down and through and I know what is happening and I let it happen..._ and I open my eyes.

* * *

 

_Cold, dark sea_   
_You waves are rocking me_   
_I close my eyes and fall asleep_   
_All eyes on me_   
_Your eyes on me..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was Sinking Man by Of Monsters and Men
> 
> God, I'm sorry about that train wreck. Oliver's mind-prison was like Hogwarts.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	48. Season 5 ~ I Didn't Get the Corn

Oliver wakes up in the night. I wasn’t there, but I was after, when I went back. First thing he said to me: “I didn't get the corn.” And I said, clinging to him, “It’s okay... It’s okay, man.”

I stay with him all night. Oliver doesn’t remember much of what happened to him. Just that he saw Beth and Carol, and then he woke up here. I fill in the gaps for him, and hold his hand when he cries, and he’s dopy from all the meds and doesn’t stay awake or asleep for very long, but switches between the two, or, sometimes, just drifts off into long silences.

“Are you okay?” I ask him during one of them.

He looks at me, miserable. “I'm just... tired of burying my family.”

He sleeps after that. I do, too, and when I wake up the next day, Oliver is awake, talking with my dad. He leaves after giving us some food. I catch Oliver looking at my cast.

“Was my fault,” I explain. “I hit the doctor, Steven.”

“Why?” Oliver asks through a mouthful.

I shrug. “I thought he was tryina euthanise you. I... got scared.”

Oliver smiles sympathetically. “Are you alright?”

I nod a little.

“Is _he_?” he asks.

I nod again. “Yeah. I apologised.”

He looks at it again. “I like the colour — like a pride statement.”

I pull a face. “What?”

Oliver shrugs. “You know, back in the Holocaust?”

I nod, remembering it vaguely in class.

Oliver goes on: “The Nazi’s didn’t just send Jewish people to concentration camps. They sent people like us there, too. They’d have to wear little, purple, triangular pins, so that everybody would know what they were.”

“Why?”

“Well, it wasn’t allowed back then. People were punished.” I think my face must look very strange, because Oliver moves on quickly: “That’s all over now though. Before the turn, there was even Gay Pride — that annual celebration thing for the LGBT community — you know? For Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans people?”

I’m sceptical, but I nod anyway.

“What’s up?” he asks.

“It’s just... a community? I didn't think it would've been such a big deal. I don't see what's so special about any of it, you know? It's just... who you are... who you love.”

Oliver's face is very calm at this, like he’s just opened a window.

“I...” He clears his throat. “I was wondering if I'd be allowed to try and sit up now.”

“Yeah. Uh... I'll help you.”

A few minutes later, after several breaks, Oliver is sitting up in his bed. I’m going to sit back in my chair again, but he grunts, suddenly, like he’d just be shocked.

“Oliver, you okay, man?”

He looks at me, horrified.

“Oliver, what's wrong?”

He grimaces. “There’s something... Something in my...” He points.

“Oh, man...” I say. “I... I know what you’re talking about.”

“What — What is it?”

“It’s your catheter...”

“Catheter?”

“For... you know... when you go.”

He winces. “ _Oh..._ I can _feel_ it. Oh my God... Oh, God, man it’s terrible.”

“Yeah, Steven said you might find it uncomf—”

“Oh, man, there’s a catheter in my dick.”

“Well, when you put it that way!”

He buries his face in his hands.

“Look it's not that bad,” I try. “It's better than the alternative.”

His hands drop and he glares at me.

“Don’t be upset,” I blurt. “Do you want me to go and get the doctor?”

Oliver moans, but doesn't say no, so I get up and find him. When I come back with Steven, I’m asked to wait outside the room for him and Oliver to be done removing the catheter. Occasionally, I’ll hear a grunt or a curse word from inside. I think at one point Oliver even tells Steven he hates him a couple of times, and Steven talks about childhood memories to distract him, and before long, Steven exits the room. He nods to me, then leaves along the hallway. I go inside.

“Sounded like fun,” I joke.

Oliver doesn’t talk to me.

“Come on. Couldn't have been that bad,” I say.

Oliver glares at me. “Why don't you go put a tube in your dick-hole then, huh? And come back and tell me it ‘couldn’t have been that bad'.”

“Least you got Vaseline?”

He laughs. “ _Vaffanculo._ ”

I sit in my chair and look at him. His pale blue hospital robe is worn and tattered. He looks pale and tired — Steven said he wants him to stay another couple nights at least.

“You okay?” I ask.

He nods. “Just tired.”

There’s a knock at the door. Michonne comes in. “Meeting at the truck. Ours. Come down for a minute,” she tells me.

I nod to her, then, when she’s gone, I look at Oliver and kiss his forehead. “I'll be back later.”

* * *

 

I accompany Michonne down at the truck and we all gather around. The only people who aren't here are Noah, Carol and Oliver. Dad starts: “Richmond, Virginia. Shirewilt Estates. Noah says that's where he lived before.”

“Is it secure?” Glenn asks.

“It was secure,” Dad says. “It has a wall, homes, twenty people. Beth wanted to go with him, she wanted to get him there. It's a long trip, but if it works out, it's the last long trip we ever have to make.”

“And what if it isn't around anymore?” Glenn asks.

“Then we keep goin',” Dad says.

“Then we find a new place,” Michonne says.

“Three days, okay?” Dad says. “We’ll leave early. Get us as much daylight travelling as we can.”

“If we keep putting it off like this, we'll never go,” Rosita says.

“We will,” Abraham tells her.

“Look, right now, Noah, Carol and Oliver’s health is what's most important,” Sasha says.

“Like you said a while back,” Abraham tells Rosita, “maybe we're always stoppin' 'cause we're never leavin' a-hundred-percent.”

Rosita nods.

Abraham looks at us all. “We get the others back to their old selves. And then, in three days, we will go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was nice just having the boys back together again.
> 
> Happy reading.


	49. Season 5 ~ Carried Away

This morning, the hospital is a sauna under the Georgian sun, and I eat with Oliver in his room. He’s still asleep when I get there, Judith, two bottles of water, and two cans in my arms, so I do my best to be quiet — this is hard when I’ve just carried her and everything else up four flights of stairs. Still, I manage, and give Judith some plastic cups to play with while I set up our food in three bowls. I give Judith hers on the floor and she eats it similarly to how a dog eats; I leave her to it.

A few minutes later, Oliver wakes up. He lets me sit at the end of the bed, and we eat breakfast together.

“No corn then?” he asks.

“Huh?”

He nods to our bowls. “Didn't get any corn.”

“I looked,” I admit, “but, they didn't have any.”

“Just string beans.”

“Ick,” I say.

“And mushrooms,” he consoles.

“Guess.”

He laughs. “Here. Have some of my mushrooms, in exchange for your string beans.”

“You sure?”

He nods.

“Thanks...”

* * *

 

Later, Oliver has his back against the headboard of his hospital bed, and I’m sitting in his lap — my knees around his hips. He didn’t seem to mind when I took this seat instead of retaking my original after coming back from the bathroom a couple minutes ago, and really, it’s nice, sitting like this, so long as I don’t think about it too much. If I think about it too much, I'll end up shuffling off to sit over on my chair again. I think I like knowing he can ask me to move if he wants to, and that I can just move if I want to, too.

“Brought you a new backpack,” I tell him, glancing across the room at it. “It’s red.”

“It is,” he says, smiling. “Thanks.”

His IV pole begins to rattle.

“Judy!” I gasp. “No, leave that!”

She does. I hand one of those ladies’ gossip magazines down to her, figuring she might like the pictures. She does, and reads them happily next to the bed for a while.

“What did you do with all my stuff?” he asks.

“Well, there wasn’t much,” I tell him, “but it’ll be in the backpack.”

He looks a little embarrassed.

“Don’t worry,” I say. “I just moved it. I didn’t look through anything.”

He asks for the backpack, so I go and get it. Again, he doesn’t mind that I sit back in his lap. He looks through. “Whoa. I forgot about most of this junk. Oh... this isn’t mine.”

He shows me Tom Sawyer.

“It is,” I say, “Carol found it. She’s been reading it to you for the past week.”

He smiles, then looks through some more of his bag. “Oh, man, read this...” He hands me a screwed-up piece of paper. “It’s a list I made back before Terminus, while I was on the tracks.”

“Pen run dry?” I ask, smiling.

He nods, pulls something from his bag, and stares at it. “It's... theirs.” He’s holding a red, thread bracelet and a dirty, pink watch. “This was Lizzie's.” The watch. “And this was Mika's.” The bracelet.

“I think Carol put them in there,” I say.

He holds them tight, then puts them away, along with the list. I decide to tell him something Dale once told me, about what a father said to his son when he gave him a watch that'd been passed down through their family. I tell Oliver, “He said to his son, _‘I give you the...’_ uh, _‘the mausoleum of all hope, which,’_ uh... _‘which won't help you any more than it did me or my father before me. But, I give it to you, not to forget...’_ no, sorry, I mean, _‘I give it to you not to remember time, but to be able to forget about it, just for a moment, every now and then... so that you don't spend all of your breath trying to conquer it.’_ Yeah,” I add. “I think that was the story.”

Oliver smiles. “So, you remember all of that from a million years ago, but you forgot to bring better food than string beans?”

I laugh. “Least I didn't forget the corn.”

“I’m really mad at myself for that,” he admits.

We smile at each other. We kiss.

Finally, I pull back and I ask, “There was a boy, who kissed you, and then he died.”

Oliver looks at me.

“I’d like to know what really happened,” I add, “if that’s okay?”

He nods.

And then he tells me, “His name was Taylor. He was fifteen, and... he was my friend.” He inhales, then smiles. “It was bad, what happened... It was just me, Pat, Taylor and his older brother Zane, and an old lady called Debbie. We got out of this bigger camp. Hid at some store for a while. It was okay. I liked them all. Every morning Tay and I’d go up on the roof together — I'd sit and write lists or something while he performed Puja.”

“Puja?”

“It’s a Hinduism thing. Puja's this morning ritual — I don't know much about it. Just that it was important to him.” Oliver sighs. “The day it all happened, when he kissed me — and, I guess, when I kissed him, too... he said that he just wanted to try it, to... to feel what it was like... and I let him, but...”

He stops for a minute. I wait.

“He was bit,” he says. “Earlier, that morning, Debbie turned. Zane took her out. Tay... He hid what she did to him. We thought it was over. We were just sitting up on the roof together, him and me... like always. It... It wasn’t until we... we were kissing... that I felt him.” He looks at me. “He was burning up. He was dying...” Oliver shakes his head. “I was kissing him, and he was dying.”

I don’t say anything because I haven’t anything to say. I used to think I was bad for killing and kissing boys, and Oliver’s been here all along thinking boys died _because_ he kissed them.

“Zane came up when he heard me screaming,” Oliver goes on. “I didn’t know what to do... Nobody did. And when... When Taylor turned... he attacked Zane, and Patrick pushed them both off the roof.”

He’s quiet for a little while after that. The sun is setting over Atlanta now, turning it a deep, orange colour, and littering the sky with pink and purple clouds. Judith is still looking through the pictures, curled up on a bed of crumpled flannel shirts. I brush Oliver’s hair out of his eyes; it’s bushy and wild. He looks at me.

“When are we leaving?” he asks.

“Two days,” I answer.

Oliver nods. “It's crazy Abraham's group have even held out this long. I was expecting them to leave for D.C. again.”

“Oh...” I stare at him. “I... haven’t told you.”

He looks worried.

“Crap,” I say. “I was meant to tell you. I... I don’t know how to say this... but... well—”

“There is no cure, is there?”

I blink at him. I shake my head. “Eugene lied.”

Oliver thinks about this for a minute, looking mad. “Where are we going instead?”

“Richmond, Virginia, to Noah's estate — there's meant to be a wall, and people.”

He doesn't say anything.

“I'm sorry I took this long to tell you,” I say.

Oliver shrugs. “I was in a coma. I'm bound to miss a few things.”

I nod. Then I kiss him and tell him, “Haven’t missed this though.”

And he looks at me, shaking his head. “I have,” he says. “I so have, man.” He puts his hand in my hair, slowly, and pulls me in to kiss him again, and I do, and he kisses me back, and kisses me back. I’m definitely thinking about his lap now — thinking about it and kissing him gently and not gently at the same time.

When I realise I’m getting too carried away, I pull back, my face and neck hot. “Sorry.”

He shakes his head and laughs. “It's okay. It’s... nice.”

“But... you’re... not...”

He shakes his head, looking a little uncomfortable. “It’s different for me. More difficult, like I said. But... I’m having a nice time. Swear, man.”

It’s hard to believe him. It’s hard not to think I’m just being an asshole about it all, like I’m getting too caught up while he seems to be managing to keep himself under control without fail.

“Carl, man?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say.

“Do you want to?”

I nod — nod and nod and nod.

He smiles. “Great.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

I kiss him again, and at some point while doing that, he takes my hand and puts it under his shirt. I catch his bandage with my thumb and hesitate.

“Does it hurt?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Feels kind of nice.”

I smile, and then I’m being pulled to lie by his side, chest to chest, kissing gently again and all squashed along the bed, until I stop kissing him to watch him undo my belt.

“This okay?” he asks.

I nod, guessing it is okay, guessing he’ll use his hand, but also guessing he might not and that I’m just weird for thinking that, except that is what he does, and my whole face goes numb. That’s when my dad _—meaning, my actual dad, Ritchie Grimes preferred as Rick Grimes—_ walks into the room.

I think Oliver must’ve heard him coming, because he puts a pillow in my lap and pulls his shirt down over his chest. I have enough time to startle and jolt back against the side bar of the hospital bed, then freeze there to the spot, my back to my dad, as he crosses the room and scoops up Judith.

“There’s my baby,” he says, then walks away, oblivious. “Night, boys. Don’t stay up too late.”

“Okay,” we say in unison.

When we’re alone, breathless, Oliver blinks at me. “I... I forgot she was still in here.”

Groaning, I sit up, feeling all fuzzy and messed up while I quickly button up and climb off the bed. “Too close.”

“Yeah, man,” Oliver mutters, sitting up, too. “That sucks.”

I frown at him more bitterly than I meant to, then I bust up laughing, which gets him laughing. Finally, I settle and sit at my chair next to him. Not long after that, Tyreese comes by to visit him. Maggie and Glenn, too, and Noah. Needless to say, Oliver and I decide not to repeat what happened earlier, and keep a respectable distance from each other for the rest of the day.

Just before bed, Michonne comes by to say goodnight. Oliver’s already asleep, so she tells me, “I'm glad he's awake. For a while I didn't know if — I mean, I guess I just thought it would've been best if he didn't wake up.” She stops talking, drawing in a sharp breath. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that.”

“It's okay,” I reassure her.

“You're good to each other,” she tells me. “Good _for_ each other. I thought at first you both were just together for convenience – you know? Like, someone to distract yourselves with. But, I don’t know, doesn’t seem that simple anymore.”

I nod for lack of a better response.

“And, just so you know, your dad agrees,” Michonne says. “He doesn't say so and at times he might not know how he feels about it all, but he treats him like a second son. The way he talks about you both, I sometimes can't tell if he means you or Oliver.”

I smile, liking that thought.

“Now what do you want?” I ask.

“What?”

“You're bein' so _mushy._ What do you want?”

“Just, trying to be nice.” She scoffs, throwing her hand up. “But, now that you mention it...”

“Called it.”

“Comics,” she adds.

I chuckle. “I haven't seen one since the prison. Sorry.”

“Yeah, but I have.”

I look up at her. “You have?”

“Found an Invincible comic in a store today. You guys want in?”

“Yes. What volume?”

Michonne shrugs. “I'm not sure, I didn't look. No offence to the guy who wrote it, but Science Dog and Monster Girl aren't all that. I'm more into the Avengers.”

“Basic,” I accuse.

She laughs.

“I didn't know you liked them,” I say. “Thought you used to read them just to make me feel better.”

“I guess, at first. But then I kinda fell in love with it all. Black Widow's my idol.”

“Wolverine's better.”

“ _Pfft._ He's just got funky hair and can openers in his fists.”

“Can openers?”

Michonne smirks. “I'll come give them to you tomorrow.”

“Thanks.”

She nods, leaving. “Night, Carl.”

“Night.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had to let Judy get her cups back.
> 
> Ps. Robert Kirkman actually rocks the whole world and is a total hero.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	50. Season 5 ~ Air Machete

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A small centred part near the end is in Oliver's head.

The next morning, we wake up early, and Oliver decides to have a bath in one of the washrooms. Grady’s water is sourced from rain, so it runs cold, but it's something.

Oliver sits in the tub and shivers.

“Hey,” he says, teeth chattering, “at least there’s no catheter anymore.”

I laugh and sit next to the tub, handing him some soap. Water sloshes while he washes himself, and he seems to get used to the temperature.

“You don’t have to look away,” he says at some point.

“I’m not,” I say, looking at him to prove it. Keep looking. I don’t think I’ve ever thought about how nice Oliver looks. A weird nice. He’s not one of those men in dirty magazines. He’s got a weird jaw and acne and messy hair and he’s just... nice. Then again, I think I’m only thinking about it so much because of last night.

He says something.

“Hm?” I ask.

“How's your hand?”

I look at it. “Fine. Sore. How’s your bandage?”

“It's coming off a little.” He pulls at the corner of it, then tries to stick it down again, but it’s too wet. “Steven can sort it.” He shivers a little, finishing up on washing.

“I can't believe you got shot,” I say before I decide to say it.

He reaches out and takes my hand, kisses it, and tells me, “Love you, Grimes.”

“Here...” I hand him my hat. “You're in the club now, too.”

Oliver grins and puts it on, looking up at the rim. “Cool.”

I smile at him. “You look great.”

He hands it back. “Here. You wear it. It’s yours.”

He’s too cold to stay in the bathtub, so he gets out quickly and gets dressed. Dad finds us on our way back to our room, tells us Michonne’s looking for us. We find her in the waiting room outside Oliver’s room. She gives us the comic she’d promised last night, but we decide to read it later because Oliver wants to go on a walk with me around the fifth floor.

We take it slow, talking, and taking breaks when he gets tired.

 “Tell me something,” I ask, “why is a Lord of the Rings marathon so important?”

“It just is,” Oliver answers. “Try not to question it, okay?”

I laugh. “Sure, man.”

He seems happy with this.

“Let’s make a deal,” I say. “If we ever find a way... we'll watch the movies.”

“Deal.”

“Deal.” I smile at him, then shrug. “I mean, I know it probably won’t ever happen, but... it's nice to pretend, sometimes, right?”

“Yeah.” He puts his arm around me. I put mine around him, too — he feels so thin, like one squeeze could snap him in two.

There’s a door I’ve never been through before, so I hold it open and let Oliver in first — the hallway is long and dim, with bulletin boards and signs about directions in the hospital, illness, and flu shots. At the end of the hallway is an open elevator, nothing but blackness inside.

“Whoa, look...” Oliver points at a poster. “It’s a list of the symptoms when you turn.”

“You never saw them?” I ask.

“No... Pat and I never made it to any evac centres. No radio. No news. We had no idea about any of this except what happened to our parents. What we saw happening outside.”

He reads it. It’s a big poster, so it takes him a few minutes.

“It doesn’t say how to kill them,” he comments, “just how the sickness spreads, and how to identify a sick person.”

“Nobody really started killing them until the military stopped doing it for us,” I say, and then I get tired of talking about this, so, suddenly, I extend my cast arm, like I’m holding something. “Draw your weapon,” I say.

“Err, what?”

“We’re going to have a machete fight.”

Oliver laughs. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, come on.”

“I didn’t bring my machete.”

“It’s an _air-_ machete fight.”

He laughs again.

“Air up!” I order. “I refuse to fight an unarmed patient.”

“Well, I refuse to fight a one-handed moron,” he retorts.

“Then it looks like we’re even,” I insist, waking my air-machete around, so he prepares himself — bending his knees and extending an arm.

“Guess I’ll just kick your ass, young sir.”

“As will I, yours!”

We fight. Well, we don’t really, but it’s fun and there’s grunting and fake jabbing and slashing and several dramatic death sequences that bring both of us to our knees in hysterical fits of laughter together.

“Oliver, you’re dead, I killed you!”

“No way! I just cut your leg off!” he yells, so I start hopping on one foot, thrashing my arm wildly — Oliver laughs so hard at that.

“I think I can still kill you with one leg.”

“Know what I think?” he asks me, taking an air-slash at my head which I dodge. The elevator is behind me, and I intend to leap back into it for cover, but before my chopped-off, odd shoe can even touch the floor —“WATCH OUT!”— I’m grabbed by the collar and yanked forward.

“Oliver!” I gasp, crashing into him. He staggers backwards with a cry and both of us hit the lino in a messy painful heap. Oliver cries out, and I pull myself up. “Shit, I’m sorry.”

“I’m okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Then what the hell was all that about?!” I growl at him, rubbing a graze on my knee.

“The elevator,” Oliver chokes out, pointing, “look, man.”

We both step over to it. He pulls me back when I get close.

“What?” I ask.

“Listen,” he whispers.

Careful, I lean my head closer — hear faint snarling, and hold my breath. The elevator isn't there. It’s just a sheer drop five stories down.

“Holy...”

“There’s walkers down there,” I cut him off, staring so far down that the blackness eats up the end of my eyes, like some worm hole. Very suddenly, I don’t feel safe anymore. We both back away from the empty elevator, our skin crawling. We couldn’t hear them before, but now, we can’t stop hearing them until we’ve left the whole corridor.

“I think it’s where Noah and Beth escaped,” Oliver whispers, while we walk back to our dorm. “He told me about climbing down it, to them... He fell. It's how he hurt his leg again.”

“C'mon...” I hurry us up. “Let’s get breakfast with the others.”

“I’m going to go see Carol first. See you down there?”

“You good on your own?”

“Yeah.”

“See you.”

“See you, man.”

* * *

 

“Hey, uh, can I come in a sec?”

“Yeah, sweetie. Come in.”

“The others are heading down for breakfast. Wanna come with?”

“Sure. I’ll come now.”

“Err... actually, Carol... Can I talk to you?”

“Yeah. Here. Sit... You... wanted to talk to me?”

“Yeah... err... I'm looking forward to getting out of here in the morning.”

“Me, too. This place makes me feel a little claustrophobic.”

“Really?”

“Hm. Reminds me of CDC.”

“Least you're above ground this time.”

“Oliver... you... wanted to talk to me?”

“Yeah... Are you okay?”

“Have to be.”

“Carl said you, err, gave me these?”

“Yeah. The girls... At their burial, I just...”

“You didn't want to forget either... Are... Are you sure I can keep them?”

“Of course you can.”

“I... I think about the girls all the time. It’s like they’re just... always around. They're never gonna leave. Like the smoke. It all just... follows us. Everything we’ve left behind. It’s all burned away now.”

“I said something similar to you while you were under. Did you hear me?”

“I... I don’t know.”

“It’s amazing, isn’t it? What our minds holds onto... or don’t hold onto.”

“Are you okay, Carol?”

“Yeah, I told you—”

“No, I mean... are you okay?”

“I... don’t know anymore, sweetie.”

“I’m scared you’re going to disappear again. I don't want you burn away, too.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It is... It’s just that, well, you’re sort of my hero.”

“That’s not a good idea —last time I was anybody’s hero, I lost her on a highway... Children aren't supposed to die before their parents. We're not built for that kind of loss. It's something that destroys you.”

“You left me...”

“Oliver, I... I had to. I couldn't just sit around and watch you all die. I... I can't. That's what happens now — we don't get to save people. Not anymore. We all just wait for it to happen. And... it always does.”

“Yeah... guess.”

“Are you angry at me?”

“I... don’t think so.”

“You got shot. Look at you, Oliver. Look at what I did to you... w-what — you’re just going to shrug? You’re just going to sit there and shrug at that?”

“Guess.”

“Yeah. Right. Fine.”

“It happened, Carol. It was just something that happened. It wasn't up to you, or me, or anybody. It just happened. You said it yourself.”

“Yeah...”

“Do you want to come to breakfast now, ma’am?”

“Actually... there is something else I’d like to talk to you about...”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah...”

“What’s up?”

“This is about you and Carl.”

“Okay.”

“Rick, a few days ago, asked me to talk to you about some things...”

“Err... okay.”

“Here. Sit... This won’t take long.”

* * *

 

Carol and Oliver come down and join us for breakfast a little while later. Oliver looks a little red in the face, like he’d been caught doing something embarrassing, and while he sits next to me and eats, he’s a little quieter than normal. Carol, opposite, is the same, like she has a funny secret in her face — it makes me nervous. Dad seems to notice, and gives her a look while he feeds Judith in his lap. Carol catches his look, smirks, and nods. Oliver’s face goes redder, all blotchy and flushed.

I elbow him. “You okay?”

He looks at me. “What? Yeah. What? Oh, yeah — fine.”

I laugh at him. “Okay, man.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The whole, "Children aren't supposed to die before their parents." thing. My mum said all of that to me the other day. I won't go into detail about what we were actually talking about, but it's a quote that struck me pretty hard. I'm also really enjoying Carol and Oliver's relationship lately. Oliver's become like a son to her, whether she wants that or not.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	51. Season 5 ~ In the Closet on the Sixth Floor

That night, I wake up watching Oliver slowly shuffle about the room putting on his clothes. I ask him what he’s doing, and he tells me to put my shoes on, and then I ask what we’re doing, and he tells me, “We’re exploring the tombs.”

Once we've snuck through the waiting room, we make our way into the main, fifth-floor hallway. I’m getting nervous, so I tell him, “Grady's not like the prison. Remember the elevator?”

“Come on, Grimes,” he says. “Don't tell me you're going to stay in the house now.”

I frown. “You were shot.”

“So were you.”

“Yeah, when I was twelve.”

He turns to me. “I just thought, you know, we're gonna be on the road for a while soon. This might be our the last time in a while that we can hang out together, just the two of us.”

I smile. “Okay.”

“Come on, young sir,” he continues. “Just us.”

* * *

 

At some point, we find the staircase and decide to go up to the sixth-floor. This floor’s empty, used mostly for storage, and we follow along the corridors, kissing and laughing and stumbling in the dark, whispering things meant only for us, and jumping out of our skin at any noise louder than our own footsteps.

After a while, Oliver becomes short of breath, and takes out his inhaler from his pocket — a wrinkled cigarette falls out, too, and thuds to the lino floor.

He laughs at it.

“Here I am,” he pants, picking it up, “wheezing my damn lungs up, and I've still got a stupid Morley in my pocket.”

I frown at it.

“Relax,” he says. “It's the only one I have left.”

“You've been smoking?”

“No, man.”

“Why’s it in your pocket?”

Oliver shrugs, like he thinks it's dumb. “I was going to, but I decided to give them to Daryl. Guess I missed this one.”

I examine it closely, then look at him and say, “We should smoke it.”

“We should?” he asks.

My eyes roll. “Probably not.”

“I don’t have a lighter.”

I fish into my pocket and present Glenn’s zippo. “I was using it earlier to fix my shoelace. I forgot to give it back to him.”

Oliver smiles and takes it nervously. “Let’s find a window, yeah?”

* * *

 

We find one in a small supply closet. Oliver uses the lighter to guide us through, then pulls up the blinds. The window is mouldy and stained, and so stiff that we both have to help push it open together with a tough snap. We lean out, peering over the city, down and _down_ into it’s black, ambling streets.

Oliver comes back in. “Got it?”

I hold out the cigarette, and he cups a hand around it, then uses his other hand for the lighter. It takes him a few tries, but eventually, we light it. For a few seconds, we just watch it burn. As a breeze comes in, the end glows, and ashes blow around us, then out across the city.

“You first,” I tell him.

He does. He coughs, violently, then passes it to me. I copy what he did, cough, too, then try again. We repeat this a few times, slowly, until our heads go fuzzy and we’re too nervous to keep smoking, so Oliver, cool as anything, flicks the half-smoked cigarette out the window, and we watch it tumble down and down into the darkness, until, with a wide spark as it hits the ground, it’s gone.

I look at him, smiling, then reach out and touch his mouth. I put my thumb on his lip-scar, then let go. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he whispers. “It doesn’t hurt anymore. Not that part.”

I think in my head that we’re kissing each other, only we’re not kissing at all. I get the same feeling though, like I’m overflowing. And I think he knows, too, because he kisses me. Kisses me like he was kissing me before in my head. I kiss him back. I put my hands around his shoulders, and I ask him, “Can we?”

He nods.

I tell him, “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“I don’t think you need to,” he tells me. “I'd never kissed someone like I kiss you before, but we figured that out.”

“You kissed people before me,” I say.

“Yeah, but it was different with you.”

“How was it different?”

“I never really wanted to kiss them,” he answers, and it’s a million degrees inside of me, and he adds, “It’s cool to kiss you and want to.”

My hand is on his flannel, running down his front until my fingers catch at a button — I choose in the same moment to unbutton it. Oliver pulls off his beanie. I find the next button, asking out loud this time before undoing it, and this time, Oliver nods. We’re avoiding each other’s eyes, I realise, so I look at him, and he looks at me, and I kiss him. His hands are moving and my face goes numb again, like last time, only I’m touching him, too, and the whole world is crashing down on my head and I let it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't smoke, kids. It probably won't have the same result. Here's to keeping this story within the age rating, ay?
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	52. Season 5 ~ Leaving Atlanta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First bit’s Oliver’s perspective, except it doesn’t really matter, it’s just centred script style. Rest is ya boi Carl.

“You didn’t take off your socks.”

“I needed them.”

“What?”

“Nothing... Just, thanks, for that.”

“Are you.. thanking me, for...”

“Whatever, man.”

“It’s getting early... Think we should, you know, get back, before Grady starts waking up.”

“Okay.”

* * *

 

We’re leaving today, so we spend a while gathering our things before taking what little we have down to the fire truck in the parking lot. I have this feeling that Tara caught us sneaking out together, because she keeps giving us funny looks, and at one point, calls me Casanova. Luckily, she doesn’t draw much attention to it, though.

Judith fusses with Oliver in the back of the fire truck while we all load up supplies and food. Eugene hasn’t said anything. Doesn’t even look at anybody, much. It’s a little unsettling, really.  

Oliver smiles at him. “What happened to your face?”

Eugene touches the bruise. “Sargent Ford in all his justifiable grace recently found distaste to my... unfortunate confession... and, as a result, I’ll be sporting this WWE standard shiner until the wound, both figuratively and mentally speaking, has healed.”

There’s a short, awkward quiet. Oliver’s smile goes away.

“Oh,” he says. “Sucks.”

“Yes,” Eugene says. “It does.”

Gabriel speaks to them next: “How are you feeling this morning, Oliver?”

“Good, sir,” Oliver answers.

“And you — Noah, Carol?”

They both nod, mumbling as they help collect crates of food. Steven comes out to see us off. He shakes my hand and tells me, “Take care, Carl.”

“Thanks,” I say, “for everything.”

He nods, turning to Oliver to shake his hand too. “Change your bandage every day and take your antibiotics,” he instructs. “And make sure Carl keeps that cast on until he's healed.”

“Yessir.”

“You sure none of your people want to come with us,” Dad asks. “We don't know what'll be in Virginia for sure, but, can't say we don't owe it to y'all to try.”

“Thank you,” Steven answers. “But with no Dawn, we have no reason to. We'll be okay. Thank you though, Rick. And good luck, to all of you.” Steven waves, and heads back inside Grady.

Dad nods and climbs into the passenger seat beside Rosita and Abraham. Everyone else climbs in the back. The engine shudders under us, and we drive, leaving Grady Memorial Hospital. The mood feels simple and calm — we aren't letting ourselves expect much, but we aren't hopeless, either. We're just here as a unit, a family, watching quietly as the last traces of Atlanta are left behind, the last skyscrapers dipping under the horizon, as if they were never there in the first place and there’s nothing left but Richmond, Virginia ahead of us, and getting Noah home, for Beth. It’ll work out, or it won’t, but wherever we go, it'll be okay — like Oliver says, everything works out the way it's supposed to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of Part One: Stale M&M's.
> 
> Happy reading.


	53. Season 5 ~ It’s Better Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beginning of Part Two: The Easy Part.
> 
> Back into Oliver’s head.

_Struggling man has got to move_   
_Struggling man, no time to lose_   
_I'm a struggling man, and I've gotta move on_   
_I'm a struggling man, and I've gotta move on..._

I jolt awake. The air inside the van smells musky and stale, like feet; I take it in to get rid of the smell of blood — ghosts don't just trick your eyes, they trick your nose, too.

_Do nightmares kill you?  
**No, that's stupid.**_

I listen to Carl’s chest beating because it's easy to. His is speeding up, or mine is slowing down. That happens. Sometimes Carl and I are like anatomy mirrors. We'll reach for the same cup or glance at each other at the same time. He'll yawn and I'll yawn. I'll reach for his hand him and he'll reach for me.

**_Stupid._ **

His breath is warm inside my beanie hat. I can see, across from us, Michonne’s necklace — the silver M catching the moonlight. I reach into my pocket for a small pink watch and hold it. Mika and Lizzie died months ago. Beth, about a month, I think. I still dream of them, always at the grove, always running, always chased by the dead. I'll find the house. They’re waiting for me inside, but they don’t let me in. I’ll just hear Beth singing.

_It's better now..._

And the walkers get me.

"Nightmare?"

Startled, I look up and abandon the watch in my pocket again. Carl pulls me to him, clumsy from sleepiness but careful about his fractured knuckle, which is still healing, like my injuries. His chest smells of sweat and dirt and sweetcorn.

Carl sighs through my beanie. "Hope you sleep soon, Oliver."

Hugging him close, I shut my eyes and wait for him to fall back asleep.

* * *

 

About half way to Noah’s place, Shirewilt, Virginia, and running dangerously low on supplies and food, we decide the next morning to loot a small mall in a town in South Carolina.

Once we make sure the place is clear, we split up into groups. Michonne, Maggie and Glenn take the grocery store. Sasha, Tyreese and Gabriel take the clothes store. Daryl, Carol and Noah take the armoury store. Eugene, Rosita and Abraham go to a home depot. Then finally, me, Carl, Rick, Tara and Judith loot the bath and body store.

"Toss in a few soap bars," Tara tells me.

"We'll need a whole fire-truck full."

“Ah...” She sighs. “I miss that thing.”

I drop several colourful bars into the shopping cart Judith is sitting in. Rick pushes it, and has to stop her from grabbing things and trying to eat them:—“We’ll get you some food soon, baby.”

We keep scoping through, wandering past walls of strange smelling lotions and bath bombs. Rick checks in back for anything, and Tara decides to go outside the store to look over the empty mall from the railing, and since Carl and I are alone for the first time since the hospital, I decide to cross the room and ask him, “Kiss me?”

“What?”

“Before they get back. Velocemente!”

“Wait, I know that one. It’s...”

“Quickly,” I say.

“Right, right. Velocemente — quickly. Got it.”

I’m hopping on the spot and he laughs at me, so I grab him and we’re kissing and it’s better than I remember. Then Rick is coming back from the staff rooms, Judith giggling from the cart, and Carl and I turn to separate shelves, catching our breath.

“Find anything?” Rick asks.

“Nope.”

“Niente.”

Rick goes outside. “Think we’re done here. I’m going next door to the grocery store, see if I can find any more medicine.”

When we’re alone again, Carl turns to me. I think he might kiss me again but instead he asks, "Thought any more about what we talked about?"

"Err.”

“You know...”

“Well, we talk about a lot of things," I say. "Science Dog, corn versus one-hundred-and-twelve-ounces of pudding, when it'll rain next — soon, by the way, I know."

“How do you know that?” Carl insists.

“I grew up in this climate. I know rain.”

Carl waves his hands. "Anyway, I'm talking about Lorton.”

I roll my eyes because I knew this.

"Well?"

"‘Well’ what?"

He sighs. "Going back to your home?"

We discussed it recently: going back to put down my parents. Turns out, one day might come closer than I was expecting.

“Look,” Carl adds, “if you’re worried about what my dad’s going to say—”

"I'm not. I’ll ask, okay?" I say.

“Good,” he says, “because I'm not handing over the pecans this time."

I roll my eyes. “I’ll do it when he's in a good mood. Or... tired, you know? Suggestible."

Carl snorts. “Ask, man... or you never will."

We head for the store exit.

“For the record,” Carl says, “I think he’ll let you do it. It’s on route. What difference is two walkers? I mean... I know they’re your parents. I just meant—”

“It’s okay,” I say.

My eyes roll and I turn and leave the store. Some of the others are gathered by the escalators. We meet them. Tyreese hands me a book he found; _August_ by Bernard Beckett.

"Saw that you were getting close to the end of Tom Sawyer, so I figured this'd hold you out for a little while after."

“Thanks, Ty."

Everyone’s here, so we head back for the van.

"I still feel weird walking out without paying," Tara admits.

"As a former cop, I’ll let you off," Rick jokes. He holds the van door open. We get in the back, stuffed together like sardines. I get car-sick, so I sit closest to the backdoor — I already beginning to feel queasy, even before the engine starts. If it weren’t for it, too, I would have already finished Tom Sawyer.

* * *

 

Before dark, we stop the van for the night by a lake, off road. Rick and Michonne set up their snares. Daryl goes off for a perimeter check and to hunt, and Carol joins him, and the rest of us set up camp by the shore and take turns to wash in the water. Privacy is a privilege around here, especially lately, so it’s pretty normal now to see more than just a side boob or someone's privates if you aren’t always checking where your eyes wander to. When it’s my turn to wash, the lake water is freezing and I get told off for swearing about it, but it’s good to get clean again; I mostly just try to do something about my hair, which is so long and messy that it hurts my fingers trying to brush it. I know that it's a dumb thing to be vain about, considering, but being a kid, it's hard for people to take me seriously anyway, and it doesn't help when on top of that I look like a pre-pubescent Neanderthal.

"Crap, that was cold," Carl says, mostly to himself, shivering beside me after his own wash, with a towel wrapped around his shoulders and another around his waist. He doesn’t have hair issues, even though his is longer than mine. It’s always so smooth. He turns to me, lips blue.

“Cold?” I joke.

Carl shoves me.

I put my damp towel around him.

“I don’t think I’ll ever see my balls again after this.” His teeth are chattering. “They’re hiding up under my lungs from now on.”

“Aw, no.”

He shoves me again and I bust up laughing.

* * *

 

Later, we eat around a high-walled fire. I picked up a can of cherries. “Ugh. Gross...”

“Swap?” Rosita offers. “I’ve got soup.”

“Okay.” Quickly, I sniff my cherry can. Rosita frowns. “Oh...” I hand it to her. “Sorry. I like the smell.”

“And not the taste?”

I shake my head. “Thanks for the soup.”

She begins eating slowly. “No... problem.”

I have this pun book that I picked up a while back, and Tara’s reading it, grinning and laughing to herself. She pushes the book into Eugene’s lap and says, “Oh, man, you gotta read this one...”

By now, we’re all used to her enthusiasm of puns, but Eugene still looks confused when he glances up from his mixed vegetables, mouth full. "What is it?"

She points at the page. "This one, please?"

Everyone's watching, smirks or confused expressions plastered over their faces, apart from Tara. Tara's already laughing her ass off.

Eugene huffs. "I'm not sure I'm willing to consent to this kind of highly personal ridicule."

"Oh! It's not ‘highly personal ridicule’," she argues. "It's funny."

He narrows his eyes. Tara's still laughing, making "K" noises. It’s making some of the rest of us laugh too.

"Come on, Mr. Porter?" I beg. "Read it..."

"Yeah, c'mon, Eugene?" Rosita says, then Glenn, and then Maggie.

Eugene sighs at us all, puffing out his cheeks. He's always a good sport, even if it might just be because he’s working so hard to get back on our good side again.

He clears his throat. "Hmm. That's a good question, let me mullet over."

* * *

 

Late at night, I’m found reading under a blanket with a flashlight, by Carl, who pranks me by pulling the blanket up and growling. I almost stab him in the eye.

“Shit, dude,” I hiss, shoving him. Shore pebbled crunch and crackle under us. Some bodies sleeping nearby shuffle and turn over, and Noah and Gabriel, on watch, look over at us.

“Your torchlight is coming through the blanket a bit,” Carl says.

“Sorry,” I say, “did it wake you?”

Carl shrugs. He looks tired. I shuffle to lie down with him, switching things off and shutting my book on a page number that I spend a few minutes making sure I’ll remember.

“Love you,” Carl whispers, suddenly.

I look at him. His eyes are shut, face pale under the moonlight.

"Love you, too, man."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy reading.


	54. Season 5 ~ What Happened & What’s Going On: Breathe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If any of you want a visual of Oliver, see the drawings created by several lovely humans over on Tumblr (my blog is @notmuchmoretosay) under the tags "Oliver De Luca" and "Stale M&M's" and "Caliver"

_~ Ten days pass ~_

* * *

 

Once we arrived in Richmond, Virginia, we camped at a McDonald's for the night. There's a gas station next door, and an empty highway next to that. I know the restaurant doesn’t have any food left by now, but I still get the kid-ish excitement being here — my mom was one of those ‘healthy parents’ that ate avocados on toast and only let her kids have candy on Halloween and Easter.

First light, Rick takes a group out to Noah’s estate; Noah, Michonne, Tyreese and Glenn, while the rest of us waited here for them to radio back.

To keep busy, some of us loot the gas station next door, since there’s nothing in McDonalds except ketchup packets. We find nothing but gum, which is something — our breath is so fresh. Outside, by the gas pumps, there’s a sign that reads: _TAKE WHAT YOU NEED. GOD SAVE US ALL._

I go inside, look for something to do. Everyone’s fine. They’ve set up a fire in one of the broken grills. Judith’s having a good time, especially, sitting at a craggy green and red table with Carl, playing with some Happy Meal toys; Aang and Momo from the Last Airbender. I'm just glad my beanie's having a break from her. She keeps chewing it. With nothing to do, I leave again, figuring I can keep watch since nobody else is. I climb up onto the roof — I’ve always wanted to; I don't know why. It's pretty anti-climactic, really... a lot of bird crap. At least it gives me a good view. I can see all the way around, from the row of trees behind me, across the highway and the parking lot, to the flat greenery ahead, and a few towns in the distance. There's some cloud in the west but it’s going away, and the rest of the sky is blue and pale and streaky.

I tap the handle of my knife. It’s the only close combat weapon I have no, since I gave my machete to Rick shortly after leaving Atlanta. Everyone needed something quiet. Carl’s got his hunting knife. I have Lizzie's... Just figured Rick could hold on to my machete — he uses it more than I do.

Like usual, Daryl's out checking the perimeter and hunting. Everyone else is inside, except Abraham and Rosita, I realise, who I think were originally on watch, and who... I think are actually having sex in the van. It’s swaying and there’s grunting.

I pick up a broken it of the roof tile and throw it down at the van.

The grunting stops.

“Gross,” I complain, even if I’m just a little bitter. But I don’t think about it for long because someone leaves the restaurant. I lean over the roof edge, past the big yellow M, and watch Carol climb up on the dumpster I’d used to get up here.

“Here...”

I grab the bottle of water in her hand. “Thanks.” And I drink. Carefully. Water's getting hard to come by lately.

 _"Hey, Carol?"_ Rick’s disembodied voice asks.

Carol grabs her talkie. "I'm here."

The van opens and Abraham look out, his face sweaty and red as he climbs out, looking embarrassed. Rosita follows proudly, waving sorry at me. I avoid looking at them, too preoccupied by Carol and Rick’s conversation.

_"We're half way there. Just wanted to check the range."_

"Everybody's holding tight. We've made it five-hundred miles, maybe this can be the easy part."

_"Gotta think we're due. Give us twenty minutes to check in."_

"If we don't hear from you we'll come looking."

_"Copy that."_

The talkie crackles. Carol steps down from the dumpster.

“Things okay?” Rosita asks her.

“Let’s hope so,” Carol says.

* * *

 

Sometime later on the rooftop, I watch a small herd of horses, or deer —it’s hard to tell from this far away— graze across a field. I take out Lizzie’s watch again; Mika’s red bracelet tangled around it. The watch is too small but the bracelet fits once I get it over my wrist, and I decide to keep it there.

I catch myself tapping again, and stop, frustrated, like I want to throw something to get this fidgety feeling away. I take a breath. My temper’s gotten shorter lately. Worst a few weeks ago after a few days without sleeping; I told Carl to stop being a bitch about something and he asked me what my problem was and I felt terrible. It just came out. Later, when we’d sat down and talked about it a little, Carl told me I probably just needed to jerk off.

I pull my sleeves over my hands, getting fidgety again, and then Sasha is climbing onto the dumpster and pulling herself up onto the roof.

“Your watch now?” I ask.

She nods, and we swap posts. It only hurts a little to climb down again. Back inside the restaurant, I sit with Carl. I put an arm over his shoulder and he notices my wrist.

"Mika’s?” he asks.

I nod.

He smiles. “I like it."

* * *

 

Dangerously close to the twenty-minute mark, I’m getting so anxious about Rick and the others that Carol gives me a snared hare from this morning and tells me to skin it — giving me something to skin is the equivalent of giving a dog a chew toy; else I'll start chewing up the furniture.

I get to it, know how from storytime and watching how Daryl usually does it. When I’m done, Maggie, who is de-feathering a prairie-chicken Rosita shot, puts the hare over the make-shift grill fire.

_"Carol? Copy?"_

"We're here," Carol says.

_"We made it..."_

We all turn to her, silent.

_"...It's gone."_

The restaurant turns into a human groan.

"Alright... Copy that," Carol says. She puts the talkie on the table. I know it shouldn't hurt and I know I brought it on myself, but God damn. I'm getting mad again. Mean. I snatch my backpack, grab out a few books, then head around back into the staff, break room. I slump on a dust, old couch and read Tom Sawyer. It takes a while for Sawyer to calm me down again, but finally, think about how Shirewilt is a bust doesn’t hurt so bad anymore.

There's a knock at the door and Carl comes in.

"You okay?" he asks.

I shrug. "Held my breath. Was dumb."

Carl sits between my legs, his back to my groin.

"Can you read to me?" he asks.

I hesitate a beat, then clear my throat and begin to read aloud...

_Tom drew an hour-glass with a full moon and straw limbs to it and armed the spreading fingers with a portentous fan. The girl said:_

_'It's ever so nice – I wish I could draw.'_

_'It's easy,' whispered Tom, 'I'll teach you.'_

_'Oh, will you? When?'_

_'At noon. Do you go home to dinner?'_

_'I'll stay if you will.'_

_'Good. What's your name?"_

_'Becky Thatcher. What's yours? Oh, I know,' Becky said. 'It's Thomas Sawyer.'_

_'That's the name they lick me by. I'm Tom when I'm good. Call me Tom, will you?'_

_'Yes.'_

_Now Tom began to scrawl something on the paper, hiding the words from the girl. But she was not backward this time. She begged to see. Tom said:_

_'Oh, it ain't anything.'_

_'Yes it is.'_

_'No it ain't. You don't wanna see.'_

_'Yes I do, indeed I do. Please let me?'_

_'You'll tell.'_

_'No I won't – deed and deed and double deed won't.'_

_'You won't tell anybody at all? Even, as long as you live?'_

_'No, I won't ever tell anybody. Now let me.'_

_'Oh, you don't want to see!'_

_'I WILL see.' And she put her small hand upon his and a little scuffle ensued. Tom pretended to resist in earnest but let his hand slip by degrees till these words were revealed:_

_'I LOVE YOU.'_

I stop.

Carl glances at me. “You okay?”

“It’s weird how Sawyer says ‘lick’ when he really means punish,” I say.

“People talked weird back then.”

“I don’t know, maybe he really does mean lick. That’s punishment in itself.”

“Oh, really? You think licking is so terrible?” Carl suddenly twists around to lick my cheek. I cry out laughing and hold him back at arms-length, snorting at him while he struggles to get a lick on my wrists or arms or anywhere else he can reach. “This so bad?”

“Stop!” I laugh. “Ew, dude, gross!”

“Really so bad?”

I hold his face still, the book clattering to the floor by the couch, and then I kiss him. He kisses me back. Kisses and kisses and kisses until someone walks into the room. “Oh!” We'd leap through the wall and into the parking lot if there wasn’t already a wall here to stop us. I wipe my face.

Tara bares her teeth. "Sorry — I didn't mean..."

"Tara," I blurt, stuffing my hands in his pockets.

"Sorry,” Carl says. “We were, erm—"

"Something’s wrong,” she interrupts him. Her face is very pale. “Come on!”

We go. In the restaurant, Carol is talking into the talkie. Rick is on the other end, yelling about something.

"What happened?" Carl mutters. "What's going on?"

"Rick?" Carol asks. "Rick, are you there?"

Sasha is pacing — we can hear her through the ceiling.

_"Tyreese got bit!"_

For some reason, nobody reacts for a second. Rick could have just told us that the ocean is blue. He says it again.

_"He's bit."_

I think I've been punched across the face. There's a stagger on the roof and then Sasha crashes through the doors. Carol gives her the talkie.

"Ty? Where is he? What's happening? Rick!"

I stare at her. Rick can't explain a lot. Sasha is crying. She throws the talkie at the seat when the connection goes to static. I inhale, then look at Carl, who is watching me. Sasha rushes past into the bathroom. I can hear her crying. We're all silent. Maggie is holding her mouth. Tara is holding her hand. Carol is holding mine and Carl is still watching me.

 _"Carol!"_ Dad snaps us all back. _"We're at the car! We need to cauterise the arm and wrap it. Get Sasha and the boys away! They don't need to see this!"_

Everyone's moving.

Carol is rummaging in a supply bag. "They must've chopped it."

"H—his arm? They can do that?" I ask, feeling ill. "Chop it?"

"Did it with my dad," Maggie says.

"I the first-aid kit, in the van," Carol says. "Anything you can find!"

"Okay." Maggie heads outside.

"Can I help?" Sasha offers. She's trembling.

"No," Carol answers. "You go with the boys round back before they get here."

Sasha grimaces.

"If they got him to the car they're trying to save him," Carol says. "They can — Tara, get the fire going.”

“It’s going.”

“Stronger,” Carol insists. “Put what’s cooking somewhere else for now. It needs to be hot enough for a cauterization."

"What're you gonna use to do that?" Rosita asks.

Carol swallows. "I don't know. A dish of some kind. Something flat and metal that we can heat up."

"There should be something in the scrap pile for the perimeter fence. I think I saw an iron in there – we put a towel around it, you could use it."

"That'll work."

They go to find it. Sasha, Carl and I stand there, not wanting to leave them. When Carol comes back she puts the iron on the grill. Maggie comes back with everything she was asked to retrieve, plus some extras: gauze, towels, pain killers.

"Thank you," Carol pants, jumping when someone strolls past the window outside. "Oh! Daryl..." He enters the restaurant. "You're back."

"What's goin' on?" he asks. He looks pissed, pulling his crossbow off his shoulder while a small collection of hares and squirrels roll over his other. "Why's no one on watch? Jus' had to take out a walker by the pump."

"Tyreese got bit."

"What?!"

"His arm," Carol says.

"They helping him at Shirewilt?"

"No. It was a dead-end."

Daryl looks overwhelmed.

"I think Rick got Michonne to chop it," Carol says. "They're bringing him back — we're gonna cauterize the wound."

"How long ago?"

"We're not sure. Think they just left. They’re on their way, at least."

He squeezes her shoulder and she hugs him. Then pulls herself together. Daryl looks at Sasha, nods. She sniffs, nods back.

"Alright, we got everythin'?" he asks.

"Just need them to get back," Carol says.

The talkie crackles. We all look. We don't move.

_"Carol."_

She doesn't pick up.

_"He's dead."_

* * *

 

The grave is dug by the afternoon, and Tyreese’s beanie hangs on the cross. One at a time, we step up and drop spade-fulls of dirt in on top of his body.

"We look not at what can be seen, but we look at what cannot be seen. For what can be seen, is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal. For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God. A house not made with hands. Eternal. In the Heavens... In the Heavens."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIP Tyreese
> 
> Extract was from chapter six of Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.
> 
> Thanks, Rolo-chan for the McDonald's inspiration! Definitely better than my lame field location before.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	55. Season 5 ~ Them, Part 1: Tired

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW: Some mildly suggestive stuff at the end.

_~ Five days later ~_

* * *

I keep watch, alone, sitting up in a tree and thinking of that song my dad used to play on piano — that Dubussy one, _Clair de Lune_. I pretend I know how to play it, too, as I tap the rhythm into an imaginary trunk-piano. It works well with the sound of rustling leaves and the whistling breeze, briefly cooling my face. It’s not hot. I just haven’t drunk water in two days. None of us have; turns out water is important for regulating body temperature.

Still, just because it’s not very hot, it doesn’t mean that after this long in the sun, I haven’t gotten sunburn. There's so much of it. My sunburn has sunburn. My face. My collarbones. My neck. My shoulders. I'm peeling like a snake. I saw myself in a mirror a little while ago and had to rub my eyes. For a white boy, my skin is pretty brown, but right now, I am brown like Nonno and the photos of his parents before they moved to Assisi — I’ve gone full Sicily southern Italian. Hungry like they were, too. My clothes hang from me more and more each day. Sometimes my stomach feels so empty that I can feel it pulling all of me into me. Abraham even mentioned that once we go long enough without eating, our own bodies will start eating themselves. I guess I knew this, but it still made me feel sick, but in a messed-up way, it's comforting knowing that I'm not the only one starving to death out here.

I look out at the pasture ahead to think of something else. Virginian countryside’s always been nice. A lot of fields and forests and tracks. Lots of places for water to build up or lie stagnant, in towers or tanks or underground, which is why we’re here — split into small group again. Searching here, for fuel too since the van is running on fumes, and two more groups spread out in the forest.

Everything is quiet. I can hear Lizzie's watch ticking away in my front pocket. _Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._ I push my hand down over it.

Something catches my eye, wandering out of a rabbit hole. I wouldn't even see it if it weren't for the shiny, black eyes. It looks around. Doesn't see me. Turns its back. The wind's in my face, masking my scent. I aim my gun. Rick helped me build a silencer from a plastic Pepsi bottle. I pull the trigger just as a door opens behind me. Miss. The hare flees. My stomach aches.

I look at Glenn. He shrugs apologetically, then whistles for me to come down. I do. He puts his hand on my shoulder.

“Dry,” he croaks. “Let’s go.”

* * *

We get back with just Maggie, Daryl and Sasha to wait for. Everyone else sits in the shade, not talking. in the shade. The road is long and empty, trees either side so tall we can't see anything else, and as beautiful as Virginian countryside can be, this view of it feels more like a cage. Carol is sitting behind me at the edge of the van, combing my hair with her fingers. Carl is fiddling with a music box he must’ve found somewhere. I get this feeling he probably only picked it up because it was colourful — Carl's never told me this about himself, but I know that colour's important to him.

A few minutes later his head lifts up. We all look, too. It's the others, dawdling towards us. Shaking their heads — dry too. They take a while to get to us. They'd look like walkers if I didn't know any better. Rick tells us to get going, and we all file into the van.

* * *

For the majority of the journey I've had Judith on my lap. She seems tired, resting on my chest with her fingers wrap around my thumb, squeezing occasionally when I forget to keep stroking her hair.

Someone says we're somewhere a few miles out of Fredricksburg. I think that’s about sixty miles away from D.C. Forty miles from home.

Carl, beside me, seems to tell I’m thinking this, and for a moment just gives me this weird tired side-eye.

“Do you want me to ask?” he whispers.

I look out the window, shake my head.

He lets it drop.

Just then, the engine splutters. The van slows. Glenn's moaning, "No, no, no." Noah curses. Tara's looking at the ceiling and whispering, "Please, God?" Sasha holds her head. And finally, the truck drags to a stop.

"We're out," Abraham says. "Just like the other one."

"So we walk," Rick says.

* * *

My backpack is heavy over my shoulders. My head it too hot so I carry my beanie in my pocket. As we walk, my ribs burn. Carl sometimes will reach out and squeeze my arm with his cast-hand —which he's been using it a lot more lately— as if to tell me to keep going. This time, when he does it, his knuckle makes a horrible crunchy noise. He says it doesn’t hurt, and grinds it right in my face to prove it. I swat his hand away and keep walking.

The road ahead looks neverending, like a school corridor, only the floor is asphalt and the walls are trees. I think the devil is laying out gravel and road as we go along. He doesn't want us to reach the end.

Abraham, catching the look on my face, tells me that another thing about not eating for too long is that: “Our minds... start to run away from us.”

He grins.

I keep walking. At some point, Daryl looks over his shoulder, double taking at something behind us. Rick checks. I know what’s there — walkers have been following us for hours.

"We're not at our strongest," Rick worries. "We'll get them when it's best. High ground, something like that. They're not going anywhere."

Neither are we.

"It's been three weeks since leaving Atlanta," Rick adds. It's so quiet out here it's hard not to hear them. "I know you lost something back there..." Judith whines in his arms.

"She's hungry," Daryl says.

"She's okay," Rick says. "She's gonna be okay."

"We needa find water... food."

"We'll hit some in the road," Rick reassures him. "It's gonna rain sooner or later."

"I'm gonna head out. See what I can find." Daryl breaks away, handing Rick his rifle.

"Hey, don't be too long," Rick tells him.

Daryl nods.

"I'll go with you," Carol offers.

"I got it," Daryl declines.

Carol scoffs. "You gonna stop me?"

They go. I keep walking. My asthma hasn't been the best lately, what with the constant walking and the dust in the road. This is why I've been staying nearer the front. I fish into my pocket for my inhaler, but when I spray, it's empty. I shake it and try again. Nothing.

"I've got a spare." Carl is coming up behind me from Maggie. He takes a new inhaler out of his duffel and holds it out. "Last one."

I brush it off, throw the dead inhaler into the trees. I'd had it for just a few weeks. We keep walking. I shallow my breath so he can't hear me wheezing.

"Gave the music box to Maggie,” he says after a while. “Figured she'd like it."

I’m too breathless to speak.

“Alright, that’s it,” he says, pushing the inhaler into my hands. I take it. It's hard to recover when I can't sit down and rest, but after a few head-rushes, breathing gets easier.

He squeezes my arm. I look at him, nod.

* * *

The sun moves from one side of the trees to the other, a thumbs distance away from descending under the western treetops. It must be close to the evening. I check Lizzie's watch: ten o’clock... I miss knowing what time it is.

We walk across a bridge. Under it is an old footpath. It reminds me of Lorton. Everything does in Virginia, sometimes. Rick had been looking around while we crossed. "Here," he says to us all. "We'll do the clean up here. The drop down there's steep enough for 'em not to be able to climb back up."

"We're gonna push 'em all over the edge?" Glenn asks.

"No," Rick says. "If we go over to the end, the banks're steep. We can wait on either side to push them down. Get in formation. Thin out their numbers and then pick off the rest."

"Alright." Glenn nods, exchanging glances with his wife and Abraham. "We'll help. Michonne, Sasha and Rosita, too. Rest of you guys should wait on the other end, step in if we need you to."

We nod. Just before everything starts, Carol emerges from the trees alone and meets us. She tells us that Daryl won't be long and we fill her in on what's happening.

Slowly, the walkers arrive. It doesn't take the others long to pick them off, but Sasha is manic, and almost causes both Michonne and Rick to get bitten, but Michonne is quick on her feet and Daryl returns in time to help Rick. Finally, it’s done, and once they’ve caught their breath, we get walking again.

"Dad...” Carl says, perhaps an hour or two later, “look."

Three cars are parked in the distance across the road. Whoever used them got out quick. There could be water.

"I'm gonna head out into the woods," Daryl says. "Circle back."

"May I come with?" Carol asks.

"No," he says. "Just me."

He goes. Carol lets him, turning into a sinking boat. We search the cars, so thirsty that when I search in the boot of one car and find nothing but a bottle of whisky, I grab it and unscrew the top.

"Oliver, you might not..." Abraham warns, but I don’t listen. I throw back a gulp, then I splutter up a forest fire. Abraham catches the bottle before I drop it. He's laughing, the wheezy kind, while he drinks some, offers a share to Rosita, then slips it into his supply bag when she declines.

I wipe my mouth and groan. Abraham walks away. Rosita narrows her eyes after him, then looks at me — I'm still rubbing my tongue with my sleeve and she gives me an apologetic look as I leave. Another car has a walker tied up in it. Glenn takes it out. Carl and Rick are at another car. I’m handed Judith, so they can search and find nothing. Daryl returns, too. Nothing.

"C'mon," Michonne says.

We sit at the ditch near the cars. It's getting late, and we’re tired. Thunder rumbles in the distance. I hear sloshing, too, closer, as Abraham takes a large swig of whisky.

"So all you found was booze?" Tara asks.

"Yeah," Rosita answers.

"It's not gonna help."

"He knows that."

"It's gonna make it worse."

"Yes, it is," she says.

"He's a grown man," Eugene murmurs. All the while, Abraham ignores them and keeps drinking. Eugene adds: "I truly do not know if things could get worse."

"It can," Tara tells him.

This is when a pack of dogs prowl out of the forest. My mind rushes for Carl and Judith, and I'm suddenly full of energy. I snatch my knife. Everyone else is up, too. They dogs growl and bark, and the largest of the four, a black Doberman with pointed ears, steps towards Carl and Judith, and then—

CHOOK.  
CHOOK.  
CHOOK.  
CHOOK.

Sasha’s four silenced gunshots whisper through the evening and the pack of dogs hit the ground in unison. Someone curses. I sigh. Then, without a word, Rick stands up, collects a stick from behind me, and says, "Make a fire."

* * *

Dog tastes of beef and something else. It's juicer. Better than I thought. Also worse than I thought. I keep looking at the collars. Finally, Carl and I turn in early together. We take Judith into a car and lock ourselves inside, then curl up in the back seats. If I bend my knees and put them over Carl's legs, we all fit, if Judith sleeps across his stomach and my lap.

A while passes, but I don't fall asleep. Whenever I feel myself dozing off, I get a bad thought about blood or walkers, and I jolt awake. I can hear the others outside talking quietly amongst themselves, and crickets outside — one inside, too, somewhere. I hear someone coming. Rick knocks on the window, so I open it for him.

I must look sleepy because he says, “Go back to sleep, son. I’m just taking Judith to the car with heating.”

I let them go, and lock the door after them. Carl wakes up at the click.

“Dad take Judy?” he asks.

I nod.

"Have you slept?"

I shrug.

He sighs. He looks sad. "I was dreaming about my mom," he whispers. "I was just talking with her. On Hershel’s farm. We were feeding baby chickens together, but they didn't have a mother, when I asked why, and mom said she might've been somewhere else. But, I told her that she'd probably been eaten. That everything's food for something else."

I watch him for a second, then kiss his cheek and this really small, sweet smile breaks over his mouth.

“Think this is a new record,” he points out. “Five days... since you talked.”

"Did I ever tell you about the dog I found?" I ask, breaking the streak quickly because I hadn’t even noticed it. My voice cracks

"Don't think so."

"Well, there was a dog, once,” I say. “Found her a few months before Michonne and Daryl found me. Some mutt. Nice. Stayed with me for a while. It was nice. Had something other than myself to talk to, and helped me not feel so..."

"Lonely?"

I nod. "She attacked me."

"What happened?"

"What always happens," I say. "She got hungry. But... I didn't eat her. She wasn't food for something else, you know?" I trail. "I... thought I was going somewhere with that... but... guess it was crap, huh—"

Carl kisses me. I just sigh. We haven't kissed in days. I kiss him back and — and he stops. He sits up and peers out of the window, listening. I reach out and touch his chest, then he comes back and kisses me again. He kisses my jaw, my neck, chest. Kisses down, down, down...

“Wait...” I say, so he stops and looks up. I glance at the window. “They...”

"They won't wake up." He waits a beat, then asks, “This okay? It’s okay, if, you know... you’re not comfortable.”

“I am,” I say.

He kisses my cheek, my jaw, asking again and I’m nodding and putting my head back against the window. I look up at the night sky and as he kisses me more, kissing down and down and down, I see the Milky Way swirling, watch the stars start to dance, and catch the moon as it bursts. I get to see that. I get to see black holes swallowing all life and death into nothing and everything, and it is totally okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy reading.


	56. Season 5 ~ Them, Part 2: Boys Like Me

_Let the water rise_  
_Let the ground crack_  
_Let me fall inside_  
_Let it all rain down..._

The next day, we find fourteen bottles of water left along the road, with a note: FROM A FRIEND. Our weapons are drawn and we look around uneasily, not touching the bottles yey.

"Where's Daryl?" Rick asks.

"Went off to look for water," Abraham answers.

Unless he's the Flash and Aquaman combined, this isn’t his haul. Point proven when Daryl returns, looking just as lost as the rest of us. Rick shows him the note.

"What else're we gonna do?" Tara asks.

Others are talking but I'm not really listening. I'm staring at the sky, the gloomy clouds, like it will rain — I can smell it in the air, listen for thunder, but hear nothing.

"Eugene!" someone hisses as he steps forward and grabs a bottle. "What are you doing?"

"Call it insurance." He's going to drink, but Abraham slaps the bottle away. Water flies and the road drinks it up thirstily. Abraham glares at him, then walks away without saying anything. Eugene wipes his chin.

"We can't," Rick growls.

I watch the water, wishing I could have some, just touch it... and then the water touches me. My wrist — I swear. It’s cold. I lift my hand. Drip. It's like a kiss. Another. Drip, drip. The sky is kissing me. I look up. Another kiss, this time on my mouth. My tongue. Another and another. I think of last night, Carl's kisses, and then we're all standing in the middle of the pouring rain.

I look at Carl and the rain is alive inside his hair, running down his skin. I touch it, already drenched and shivering. He’s laughing, like he loves this. And I get this feeling like Carl Grimes is the kind of boy who belongs to the rain.

_I wonder if I do, too._

Tara lies down in the road. And Rosita.

"Everybody," Rick yells, "get the bags. Anything you can find. Come on!"

Thunder cracks the sky open. Judith starts crying. I wrap my flannel shirt around her and Carl puts his hat over her head, cuddling her close. Quickly, I get to helping everyone collect the rain. Judith screams. The thunder gets worse, like it's alive... coming to get us.

 _No,_ I decide. _Boys like me don't belong to the rain._

"Let's keep moving!" Rick orders.

"There's a barn!" Daryl shouts.

"Where?"

* * *

 

We're muddy and soaked and cold when we finally get to the barn. Inside, it's big and dusty and damp, with open livestock stalls and some rooms with crates. Maggie took out the only walker.

By night-time, the storm is still going — the wind rattles and our socks are damp, but it’s warm around the fire. I stare at it, feeling better around the flames. I have more experience with them — with the smoke and ash and embers.

_Maybe I'm the kind of boy who belongs to the fire instead._

Carl, Judith and I curl up together. They sleep and I don’t. Some of the others are asleep, too, except Rick, Carol, Glenn, Daryl and Michonne, who sit around the fire whispering.

"They're gonna be okay," Carol says. "They bounce back. More than any of us do."

She must think I’m asleep, too. Carl is; he’s breathing all heavy, his hand on his chest, the cast all frayed and discoloured now — ready to remove soon.

"I used to feel sorry for kids who have to grow up now, in this," Rick says. "But I think I got it wrong. Growin' up's gettin' used to the world." I think this is a very peculiar thing to say. "It's easier for them."

Lightning flashes.

"This isn't the world," Michonne says. "This isn't it."

"It might be," Glenn says. "It might."

"That's giving up."

"That's reality."

"Until we see otherwise," Rick says. "This is what we have to live with."

Thunder makes the ground vibrate and lightning turns the room white, then orange again in the flames. I blink.

_Growing up is getting used to the world._

"When I was a kid," Rick says. "I asked my grandpa once if he ever killed any Germans in the war. He wouldn't answer. Said that was grown-up stuff, so... I asked if the Germans ever tried to kill him. But he got real... quiet. He said he was dead the minute he stepped into enemy territory. Every day he woke up, he told himself, _'Rest in peace, now get up and go to war.'_ And then after a few years of pretending he was dead... he made it out alive... That's the trick of it, I think. We do what we need to do, and then, we get to live. But no matter what we find in D.C. I know, we'll be okay, because this is how we survive... We tell ourselves that we are...”

Lightning. Thunder.

“...the walking dead."

"We ain't them," Daryl says.

"We're not them," Rick allows. "Hey... We're not."

Daryl gets up. "We ain't them."

I don't remember falling asleep but when I wake up I'm in another nightmare, except it’s real, and someone is shaking my arm. Carl is yelling but I don’t hear him over the storm. The world shakes. The doors. They’re caving in. Everybody is pushing against them. Me, too. Outside, they’re there... the walking dead. I don't remember a lot. I just push. Have to push. Against the doors. Against the mud. Splinters dig in my shoulders and hands and forehead. Walkers shriek. Wind screams.

 _Maybe none of us belong to anything,_ I think _. Not the rain or the fire or the wind or the earth. Not the stars or the flowers or the trees or the grass. Not even the storm. Not even the walkers. Maybe the world is just tired of us, and is trying to take itself back again._

_Maybe boys like me don't belong anywhere at all._

* * *

 

The next morning, I wake up feeling more tired than I've ever felt in my life. I can hear slicing, and snagging, and ripping. It’s hard to open my eyes. When I do, Carl is awake, cutting his cast off.

I sit up, groan, and distracted by me, Carl’s fingers slip and cuts his hand. He hisses through his teeth and a thin stream of blood trickles across his palm, running down his arm.

"Oh, Jesus, man..."

"I'm fine."

"You're cut."

He wipes the blood on his jeans but it keeps coming.

"Carol said she'd help you," I complain, and get him cleaned up, then help him cut the rest of the cast off. It smells terrible, like something curled up and died in it. Bad enough that I decide to throw it away outside so we don’t have to smell it in here.

Outside, the sky is clear now, but whatever’s on the ground is destroyed. Trees are fallen. Walkers are strung up in branches like Jesus on the cross.

As hard as I can, I throw the cast, and it disappears through the trees. I stand there for a while, look out at it all. The world smells different after a storm. The world _is_ different after a storm. It’s calm and quiet and fixing itself. I suddenly realise that I want to feel like that; calm and quiet and fixing myself.

 _Boys like me don't belong to the rain,_ I think _. Boys like me don't belong to the fire either. Boys like me are for after the storm is over, for when the rain and the fire and lightning have done their bit, and the world is coming back to life again._

"Oliver?"

I look around. Daryl’s standing at the barn doors, beckoning me inside. I go. Carl’s washing his arm.

At some point, I catch myself looking at his hunting knife. It was that Claimer’s — Dan’s. We both know, but we never talk about it. I put my thumb to the scar on my lip, then stop and think of other things. I help Carl wrap the small cut on his palm, and then we sit quietly for a while. Looking around, I notice Sasha and Maggie are gone.

"They’re outside," Daryl tells me. "They're okay."

* * *

 

Later, while we’re helping mend parts of the barn that were damaged from the inside, the barn doors open. I glance up over the stockade. Maggie peers inside. She looks nervous. Sasha, too.

"Hey. Everyone?"

They step aside to let someone else in.

"This is Aaron."

I pull out my Glock. Daryl barges past to check outside, then comes back in and closes the doors. He pats down the stranger, who jostles and grunts and laughs anxiously. He's tall, clean-shaven; brown, curly hair, and clean, pale skin. He doesn't look very old but he doesn't look too young either, wearing a hooded coat, a button-down, and jeans. His boots are shiny, like they're new.

"We met him outside," Maggie says, "he's by himself. We took his weapons and we took his gear."

Finally, Aaron realises it's his turn to speak.

"Hi... Nice to meet you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was In the Shallows by Daughter
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	57. Season 5 ~ The Distance, Part 1: Petrichor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mostly Oliver’s pov, but a small centred bit in Carl’s.

Carl takes Judith from Rick and stands behind the stockade wall with me, watching. Aaron steps forward to shake Rick's hand, but stops when several guns aim at him.

"You said he had a weapon?" Rick asks Maggie, who hands him a pistol. Rick nods, then stows the gun in his jeans. "Something you need?"

"He has a camp," Sasha says, "nearby. He wants us to audition for membership."

"I wish there was another word," Aaron admits. "‘Audition’ makes it sound like we're some kind of a dance troop. That's only on Friday nights."

Nobody laughs.

Aaron gets to the point: "And, uh, it's not a camp. It's a community. I-I think you all would make valuable additions. But... it's not my call. My job is to convince you all to follow me back home."

Not buying it.

"I know," Aaron says. "If I were you I wouldn't go either. Not until I knew exactly what I was getting in to. Sasha, could you hand Rick my pack?"

She does.

"Front pocket, there's an envelope..."

Rick finds it.

"There's no way I could convince you to come with me just by talking about our community. That's why I brought those." They're photos. "I apologise in advance for the picture quality. Uh, we just found an old camera store las—"

"Nobody gives a shit," Daryl says.

"You're, absolutely, one-hundred percent right..." Aaron turns to Rick. "That's the first picture I wanted to show you." I'm at the wrong angle to see. "Because nothing about our community will matter unless you know you will be safe. If you join us, you will be."

It's a nice thought. Then again, lots of things are nice thoughts and will also never happen.

"Each panel in that wall is a fifteen-foot-high, twelve-foot-wide, slab of solid steel," he tells us, "framed by cold-rolled steel beams, and square tubing. Nothing, alive or dead, gets through that without our say-so. Like I said, security is, obviously, important. In fact, there's only one resource more critical to our community's survival. The people..."

Rick stands. He looks at Michonne. She looks back.

"Together we're strong," Aaron explains. "You can make us even stronger. The next picture, you'll see inside the gates. Our community was first construc—"

I think Rick’s going to question him, or maybe even shake his hand and have this all be easy, but that's not what happens. Rick punches Aaron across the jaw. I flinch. Aaron hits the floor, out cold. The others search him.

I glance at Carl, sighing and holstering my gun. He shrugs. Michonne and Rick are walking over, talking together.

"So we're clear," Michonne says, "that look wasn't a: Let's-attack-that-man look. It was an: It-seems-like-he's-an-okay-guy-to-me look."

"We've gotta secure him," Rick replies, then tells Carl and I. "Dump his pack, let's see what this guy really is."

"Rick..." Michonne warns.

"Everybody else," Rick says, "we need eyes in every direction. They're comin' for us. We might not know how or when, but they are. Anybody see anything?"

"Just a lot of places to hide," Glenn informs.

"Keep looking." He turns to us. "What did you find?"

Aaron's backpack contains a roll of toilet paper, a jar honey, another jar of apple sauce, part of a gear, what looks like some kind of jewellery box, a glass candle holder, a small marble hippo, a map, and a flare gun—  Carl looks at its cartridge, frowns, then gives Rick the flare gun. "Never seen a gun like that before."

Rick goes over to Aaron. Maggie tending to his bruise.

I nudge Carl's arm. "It's a flare gun," I whisper.

"Flare... gun?"

I’d explain but Aaron wakes up.

He laughs. "That's a hell of a right cross there, Rick."

"Sit him up."

"I think it's better if he..."

"It's okay," Aaron assures Maggie, stretching his jaw.

"He's fine, sit him up," Rick insists.

Michonne pulls him up.

"You're being cautious." Aaron grunts. "I completely understand that."

"How many of your people are out there? You have a flare gun," Rick says. "You have it to signal your people—” At this, Carl and I glance at each other in a _that’s it_ kind of way. “—how many of them are there?"

Aaron looks scared, like he regrets this. "Does it matter?"

"Yes. Yes it does."

"I mean, of course, it matters how many people are actually out there, but... does it matter how many people I tell you are out there? Because, I'm pretty sure that no matter what number I say... Eight?"

I tense up, go to the window... nothing; the world is still quiet and calm. Glenn and Daryl are pacing.

Aaron goes on making up numbers. "Thirty-two? Four-hundred-and-forty-four? Zero... No matter what I say, you're not going to trust me."

"Well it's hard to trust anybody who smiles after getting punched in the face."

"How about a guy who leaves bottles of water for you in the road?"

_It was him?_

"How long’ve you people been following us?" Daryl growls.

"Long enough to see that you practically ignore a pack of roamers on your travel," Aaron laughs. "Long enough of see that, despite a lack of food and water, you never turned on each other. You're survivors. And, you're people. Like I said, and I hope you won't punch me for saying it again, that is the most important resource in the world."

I feel all muddled up.

Rick steps forward. "How. Many. Others. Are out there?"

"One."

Rick shakes his head.

"Knew you wouldn't believe me." Aaron sighs. "If it's not words. If it's not pictures. What would it take to convince you that this is for real?"

No one answers.

No one knows.

"What if I drove you to the community?" Aaron offers. Maggie stands up. "All of you. We leave now, we'll get there by lunch."

"I'm not sure how the sixteen of us're gonna fit in your car you and your _one_ friend drove down here in," Rick retorts.

"We drove separately," Aaron says. "If we found a group we wanted to bring them all home. There's enough room for all of us."

"And you're parked just a couple miles away, right?" Carol asks.

"East on Ridge Road just after you hit route sixteen. We... wanted to get them closer, but... then the storm came, blocked the road, we couldn't clear it."

"You've really thought this through."

"Rick," Aaron snaps. "If I wanted to ambush you, I'd do it here. You know, light the barn on fire while you slept. Pick you off as you ran out the only exit. You can trust me."

"I'll check out the cars," Michonne decides.

"There. Aren't. Any cars," Rick argues.

"There's only one way to find out."

"We don't need to find out."

"We do," Michonne says. "You know what you know, and you're sure of it. But I'm not."

"Me neither," Maggie chimes.

Rick shakes his head. "Your way's dangerous. Mine isn't."

"Passing up some place where we can live?" Michonne asks. "Where Judith can live? That's pretty dangerous. We need to find out what this is. We can handle ourselves. So that's what we're gonna do."

"Then I will, too," Glenn says. "I'll go."

Finally, Rick nods. "Okay... Abraham?"

"Yeah. I'll walk with him."

"Rosita?"

"Okay."

"If there's trouble, you got enough fire power?"

"We got what we got," Glenn says.

Rick gives him Aaron's gun. "The walkies are out of juice. If you're not back in sixty minutes, we'll come. Which might be just what they want."

They get ready to leave.

"If we're all in here, we're a target," Rick tells us.

"We'll get the area covered," Daryl says.

"Alright. Groups of two. Find somewhere safe, within eye shot." Rick puts his hand on Carl's shoulder. "Go with Gabriel."

Glenn, Maggie, Abraham, Rosita and Michonne leave to find the cars.

Carol taps my forearm. "With me, Oliver."

Judith is crying while we leave the barn. Carl and I squeeze hands, then go our separate ways. Carol and I hide in the long grass a pasture over. Daryl takes a solitary hiding spot opposite us. Tara and Eugene are somewhere near the track and Noah and Sasha are somewhere else. I saw Carl and Gabriel behind an overturned tree, but I can't see them now. The sun is overhead, dim behind some clouds, and the ground is all wet and soft.

"I love the smell after the rain."

I look at Carol. "You do?"

"The grass, and soil, flowers...” She sighs. “It’s like they're waking up. "

I think of that, then say. "Petrichor. That's what it's called, the smell."

Carol looks at me in this way like she can see something in me that she won't tell me about. Whatever it is, it makes her smile. "Where'd you learn that?"

I shrug. "Had a friend who was into words. Guess a lot of it stuck.”

We’re quiet for a bit, looking out across the slowly mending forest. I realise Judith has stopped crying.

"Last night," Carol says, "the others and I were talking about how this’ all affecting you boys, how is must be to grow up in it."

"I heard," I admit. " _'Growing up is getting used to the world.'_ "

She calls me, "Sunshine."

She does that sometimes.

"That day we lost Tyreese, you said something to Rick," I remind her. "You said that it would be the easy part. Well, it wasn't. It really wasn't. But, maybe it could be now... Maybe this'll be the easy part."

She kisses my temple. "Maybe, Oliver."

* * *

 

"I very much hope that he's telling the truth."

"Think he is?"

"Yes. At least, I sincerely hope so. A wall like that sounds wonderful."

“Well, we lived in a prison. The walls didn’t save us. I... thought they would. They made me feel safe. But... I realised, after, that it was never the fences. Never the walls. I think it was the people.”

"Carl, I... think you should know, I am concerned about you both. You and Oliver. Will you continue the way you are?"

"The way we are?"

"You're children."

"Well, I’m sure we’ll grow out of it."

"That’s not what I mean."

“Well... I’m not sure what you mean.”

"Carl... how do you expect to make a family when you are mature?"

"What?"

"What makes a family, is when a married man and woman bring a child into the world. Like your parents did. Like his, I presume."

"You should stop doing that — presuming."

“The Lord abhors all same sex relationships—"

“Gabriel...”

“The bible states that homosexual... acts... are a sin.”

"But what if you can't help it?"

“I’m not sure I understand."

“No... I don’t think you do. Oliver and I... were friends, before. We didn't mean to... to fall in love. It just happened. It just made sense."

"Carl, I respect you. And I am your friend. But this is just a coping mechanism. It's corrupting you both. It's wrong. It's unnatural..."

"I... I used to think that, too. I used to hate myself for it. But, I was wrong. And, you're not just my friend, Gabriel. You're family, too. _That's_ how it works — Jesus. You think it was a choice? I’ll tell you what was a choice: You... _choosing_ to betray your congregation. You let them die. You _chose_ that. But it's over now and you're part of our group, even after what you did, because _that's_ what family means now.... So, don't tell me I'm wrong for something I've never been able to choose."

"I'm sorry..."

...

"They’re back with the RV. Let’s go.”

* * *

 

While the others talk to Aaron and look through the RV, Carl grabs my hand and pulls me around the side of the barn. With one push, I’m backed against the wall and Carl’s hands are against my chest. Trapped walkers growl around us and there's mud on our shoes and knees.

I frown at him. "What's — hm!"

He kisses me.

"What was that for?" I ask, breathless.

He shakes his head, gulping. "I just... really needed that."

I laugh, shuffling out of his grip. "Well... that was nice and all, but I’m going to go see if Aaron’s RV had any chocolate in it, before anybody else gets it first."

He stands there, scoffing, so I take his hand, and we head back before anybody notices we were gone. The RV has water and food but no chocolate. We make a pile of it all on the table in the barn, like dragons keeping gold.

Aaron is tied up on the floor to a post.

"This..." Rick gestures to the pile. "This is ours now."

"There's more than enough," Aaron tells him.

"It's ours!" Rick growls. "Whether or not we go to your camp."

"What do you mean?" Carl asks. "Why wouldn't we go?"

"If he were lying, or if he wanted to hurt us," Michonne answers. She looks at the rest of us. "But he isn't, and he doesn't. We need this. So we're going. All of us. Somebody say something if they feel differently."

"I don't know, man," Daryl says. He's sitting on the floor by Abraham. He looks at Rick. "This barn smells like horse shit."

"Yeah," Rick relents, "we're goin'." He turns to Aaron. "So where are we goin'? Where's your camp?"

"Every time I've done this," he explains, "I've been behind the wheel. Driving recruits back. I... believe you're good people... I'd bet my life on it. I'm just, not ready to bet my friend's life just yet."

Rick grabs a map.

"You're not driving," Michonne tells Aaron. "So if you wanna get home, you'll have to tell us how."

* * *

 

After some debate, we choose route twenty-three over sixteen, even though Aaron says he and his friend already cleared sixteen. Rick thinks it’ll be safer. We leave at sundown, choosing to arrive in the dark rather than the day. Aaron tries to warn that instead of protecting ourselves, we’re just putting ourselves in more danger, but we aren’t risking it; he won't even tell us his camp's coordinates.

It's a long night. Rick drives ahead in the car with Glenn, Michonne and Aaron, while Abraham drives the RV behind — the rest of us all squashed and jolting in our seats. At some point, Carol asks me, "What're you thinking?"

I shrug. "That... maybe this can be the easy part."

Carol looks at me, then the road, watching the headlights' glow. I put my head on her shoulder, listening to the other’s talk amongst themselves.

"What's gonna happen to Aaron's friend?"

"He said without a vehicle, they take route sixteen back."

“By foot?”

“Guess.”

"And Aaron’s okay with that?"

"He didn’t have much choice."

"We didn't see anyone when we took the cars. If we had, we’d have brought them back with us."

Suddenly, Abraham curses, and the RV skids to a stop, only none of us get the memo so we all keep moving anyway. We're thrown forward in our seats, and out of them. I get hit in the chest by someone's elbow, and my knee cap catches someone's arm. Someone grunts. Someone else yelps. Tires screech and Judith is screaming.

Growling.

Carl groans, winded with Judith safely wailing on his chest—“Shit, she okay?” “Yeah, yeah, I think so.”—I grip his arm to help them both up. My ribs are throbbing. I think I hit the table as I fell.

"What happened?!" Daryl barks, helping Noah and Tara.

"Is everybody alright!?" Abraham shouts.

"I think so," Tara grunts.

"Carol, you alright?"

"Hit the couch. Hit my collarbone.”

I look at it. I poke it. "Just a bruise."

More tires are screeching outside. I look, see the car ahead driving through bodies, until it’s just taillights.

"Do you see them?!" Rosita urges.

"They drove right through," Abraham growls.

Something is shuffling in the way. Walkers. A whole herd.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the support.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	58. Season 5 ~ The Distance, Part 2: We Can Make It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All Oliver except a small centred bit.

Abraham got us out of there, and as the growls and shrieks dulled behind us, we saw a flare go up into the sky.

"There still in there! We can't leave them!"

"No choice!"

"I can see their car lights!”

"Do you see them?"

"No. No. Jus' lights. There's too many walkers."

"The flare..."

"Wasn't far away."

"We'll take another route. Rosita?"

"Route sixteen's the fastest way there."

"Alright... Alright. We got this."

"Are you sure?"

"Rick had the flare."

"Yeah, so did Aaron's friend. How do we know it's not them."

"We don't.”

"It could've been our though. It came from close by, right?"

"Estimating from a rough judge of distance between where they stopped and where the flare was fired, to be there already, they'd have to have been travelling at least—"

"Shut up, Eugene!”

"We're going.”

"Yeah, we are. If it's Aaron's friend, we'll handle them.”

"And if it's more than just one? What if there really are more than us?"

"We can handle it. We don't have a choice. It's the closest thing to a land-mark we have... We follow the flare... We handle ourselves."

And we do. We find the friend. He’s trapped under a rusty tractor, surrounded by a group of walkers. We almost leave him, but he cries out for help and that’s the one thing Carl can’t ignore. We save him. His name is Eric Raleigh. We take him to a warehouse building. His ankle is broken.

"A volley ball accident," Maggie says to comfort him.

He is a small man who grins a lot. He's worried about Aaron too. Really worried. I wonder if they’re related. They look sort of similar. Eric says the word ‘our’ a lot. "Our car." "Our stuff." "Our house." And then, at some point, I realise they're boyfriends.

The first thing I do is tell Carl: "Oh man, they're gay. Oh, man, they're totally gay. Carl, can you believe it?"

He says, "Shh!" even though I was whispering anyway. "I know, I know," he says. Except no, he doesn't, because he looks at him. I grin at the back of his head. Quietly, Carl asks, "Gay, like... gay?"

I give him a weird look. He doesn't see it because he's still staring at Eric.

"How do you know?" he adds.

"I know."

Carl turns to me, sceptical.

"I can tell," I say, "like spider-sense."

Carl points at me. "You don't have that."

"Says who?"

"Says me,” Carl says. “Says two and a half months of me crushing on you and you being totally oblivious to it."

I shove his arm. "I wasn't _totally_ oblivious."

"Guess."

"I was warming you up," I say.

"You were torturing me," he says back.

I grin.

Carl rolls his eyes, and then we fall into quiet again and he just looks anxious. We haven't seen the others since the herd, but we heard gunfire a while ago. Lots of it. Not too far away either.

I make a list in my head of all the things I'm certain of:

  1. Judith is safe
  2. Eric is a stranger (and Aaron’s ‘to-be-confirmed’ boyfriend)
  3. Rick, Michonne, Glenn, and Aaron are missing
  4. This building is clear



Then Carl wraps a blanket around us. I realise I’m shivering, and huddle into him comfortably. Eric smiles at us.

"Told you," I whisper.

Carl huffs.

Outside, we can hear Daryl whistling for the others — I once saw a movie where that happened, except it was aliens summoning back-up.

* * *

 

Finally, a few hours later, when I’m laid down passing out with someone playing with my hair, there's a sharp wrap at the door. Suddenly, I'm wide awake, grabbing Judith and standing up. It's totally quiet. Daryl isn't whistling anymore. Everybody except Eric is heading to the door and I follow. I don't go outside with Judith, but instead wait by the door.

"Dad!"

"Judith okay? Oliver?"

"Yeah. Yeah, we're fine.”

"Eric? Eric?!"

"In here!"

"Eric!"

Aaron rushes inside, past me and to his (definitely) boyfriend. Rick is short on his tail, except he stops when he sees Judith. He kisses her, then pulls me in for a hug.

"You okay?"

"Yessir."

He heads after Aaron. The rest of us collect in a store room, shuffling between an aisle of equipment. Michonne and Glenn tell us what happened, that Rick found a sound amplifying device in the car.

"Aaron and his friends've been listening to us,” Michonne says — Carl and I definitely don't glance at each other nervously, remembering a few nights ago in that car, and we definitely don't think about how embarrassing it would be if anybody’d had to listen to any of it. Luckily, we don't think about it for long. She adds, “We think whoever was listening knew about our plan."

"Yeah, he did," Maggie says. "Eric already told us. But it's just him. It's only been him."

"We saw the flare," Glenn says.

"Yeah, us too," Carol says. "Figured if it wasn't you then it'd be Aaron's friend."

Aaron walks into the store room. "Excuse me... Excuse me, everyone.” He looks happy, like he might sing. "Thank you. You saved Eric. I owe you. All of you. And I will make sure that debt is paid in full when we get to our community — when we get to Alexandria."

_It has a name._

"Now," Aaron says, "I'm not sure about you, but... I'd rather not do anymore driving tonight. Maybe we can hit the road tomorrow morning?"

"That sounds fine." Rick enters, into the light. "But if we're staying here tonight, you're sleeping over there."

"You really think we gotta do that?" Maggie asks.

I think of the Governor, of Joe, and Dan. Gareth and Dawn.... Aaron and Eric don't fit into that kind of people. I even think I trust them.

"It's the safe play," Rick answers. "We don't know you."

"Look, the only way you're gonna stop me from being with him right now is by shooting me," Aaron says. Rick doesn't deny it, but Aaron still tries to step past him. Glenn stops him.

"Whoa," he reassures, then looks at Rick. "He told us where the camp is, and he really is only travailing with one other person."

Rick doesn't budge.

"They're both unarmed," Glenn whispers. "One of them's got a broken ankle. I want us to be safe, too... I can't give up everything else. I know what I said, but... it does matter."

Finally, Rick steps aside. "Alright."

* * *

 

“Oliver... Oliver, wake up.”

“W — What?”

“You were having a nightmare again...”

“Oh... sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“Did you sleep at all?”

“I did. I dreamed of the rain.”

“You should go back to sleep.”

“I’m okay.”

“Carl...”

“I’m okay. Promise. I’ll stay up with you.”

“Thanks...”

...

“I've never met a couple like them either. Aaron and Eric."

"Like us.”

“Guess.”

"Were they part of that group you told me about? You know, the, uh, AMC community? What — What's so funny?"

"It's, LGBT. And it wasn't, like, a place, where people lived. It was called a community, but not like the one we're going to. People made campaigns and did peace protests, and... wore T-shirts, stuff like that."

"Guess it wasn't something Mom and Dad ever thought to talk about with me. I never even thought about men marrying men, or women marrying women. Did that happen before?”

"In some places, I think."

"Some?"

"Well, before, there were some states where it was illegal."

"Illegal?"

"But it was all bullshit law stuff. People could marry who they wanted, they just had to go places like Massachusetts to do it."

"Would they get into trouble when they went back home."

"I don't know... Maybe they just didn't."

“Oh...”

"My parents didn't either — talk about that stuff, I mean. Not much. My aunt, on Dad's side. She lived across the country and we only met her a few times. But she had a girlfriend and a boyfriend at the same time. Or that's what Pat told me."

"Really?"

"Yeah, but Pat also said he once got high from smoking coffee.... What's up?"

"Your parents... What would they've... thought, if you’d, you know..."

"If I came out to them?"

“Yeah.”

"I... don’t know. I don’t think my dad would be into it. My mom? I think she'd have been surprised, at first — I don't know, maybe not. Sometimes she'd look at me, like, I don't know... like she was telling me to take my time or something... like she knew. I think... I think she'd have really liked you."

"And... Patrick?"

"I don't know... He asked me if I was gay once."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"What did you say?"

"I didn't. Not really. Just, sort of avoided the question. But he didn't really seem to care. He was asking because he caught me looking at a billboard."

"What was on it?"

"Does it matter?"

"I don't know, does it?"

"No. It doesn't. None of it would've mattered."

"It wouldn't?"

"No. It wouldn't have mattered to him, I don't think."

"So, are you?"

"Am I what, Carl?"

"Gay."

"Are you?"

"I don't think so..."

“Me neither. Girls are too pretty.”

...

"Carl, you still awake?"

“M-hm.”

"I... I don't want to go home yet."

"Oliver..."

"No, no, no, listen. Yet. Just not yet. It's not the right time. Your dad's gotta see this place. He's gotta figure this out."

"You want to wait to go home?"

"I do.”

"But we will. We will, Oliver, right?"

"Yeah. If this place is safe. You and me. We'll go home and put my parents down."

"One day..."

"One day."

* * *

 

The next morning, we drive right past my suburb, but it’s easy not to get sad over it after a while, because Tara and Eugene find a deck of cards.

"Seven card stud. Aces, quadros, and two high jacks."

"So there's fourteen wild cards?” she asks. “Are you serious?"

"Serious is two dollars," Eugene says.

She looks horrified.

"Abraham...” Rosita points from the passenger seat. “...look." It's the Washington Monument. From here, we can see part of the city. I think about Lincoln's Memorial on the other end of the monument, the long-since-dead president's larger than life statue still inside, sitting proudly and watching over us. Poor guy.

"How much longer we got?" Abraham asks.

"Looks like we're a little over half way there. Why?" Rosita asks.

Abraham looks down at the dashboard.

"We can make it," he says. "We can make it..."

* * *

 

We don't make it. The RV runs out of battery. To avoid baking to death, most of us wait outside in the shade, tired and getting hungry. Glenn and Abraham slave over the hood — the latter making angry fire truck references, while the former keeps his cool.

I give the sun a smile, and the sun scorches back. It’s the hottest day I’ve experienced since Georgia.

"I saw the road signs, before," Carl says at some point.

"Yeah..." I say.

"You okay?" he adds.

I shrug.

"One day," he says.

I reach out and take his hand, and the RV growls to life again. We all cheer. I kiss Carl’s cheek, then head back to the RV.

"You go on with them, sweetie," Carol tells me when she sees me glancing back at the other car. "Go on."

"Thanks, Carol."

"Comin' with us?" Rick asks me when I walk over.

I nod. "If that's okay."

"Hop in,” he answers the same moment Carl snatches my wrist and pulls me inside. “Least now he’ll stop complaining so much."

I laugh, ask Carl, “You missed me?"

He rolls his eyes and puts Judith in my lap.

He smiles at me.

"You think this'll be the easy part?" he asks.

"Yeah,” I say, “I do."

Michonne takes a seat in front and looks out to Rick. He walks away.

"Where's he going?" Carl asks.

"He said he needed a minute."

After a few minutes, Rick returns. "Let's go."

* * *

 

Just minutes later, we park up outside a large, rusty, dark-green gate. Outside it — this side, burnt houses and dead corpses are all we can see, and ahead, is just the tall gate and the steel beam wall, stretching out endlessly.

_Alexandria..._

I swallow dryly and look at Rick's hands around the wheel. He's trembling. I can hear something children laughing and I stop breathing.

"Ready?" Michonne asks, putting a hand on Rick’s. He's just as stunned as the rest of us. He nods, then looks back at Carl and I.

"Yeah... Yeah."

We all climb out. Rick brings Judith. We stand before the gate and someone opens an inner sheet that lets us see inside. I see some streets and big, clean, colonial houses, with garages and flowers and porch swings or rocking chairs, a grass verge, some trees, and a small lake. Looks like there’s even a grass verge filled with big solar panels. From outside, I can see a water tower in the distance, and outside, nearby, there’s a watch tower.

Suddenly, I notice a man watching us, standing right there by the gate. Aaron speaks to him —Nicholas, I catch— and then the gate is opening slowly. Something strange and tickly whispers across my neck and I look over my shoulder. She's hovering in the window. A girl. Inside a burned house. Long, brown hair and fair skin. Just for a split second. And then she’s gone. Michonne walks past. I look again for the girl but I don’t see her again.

"Hey." Carl smiles at me. "We're both the strays this time, huh?"

We approach the gate. Aaron helps Eric through, hobbling out of sight — something crashes against a trash can as we pass it and we wheel around and aim our weapons. A possum. One bolt from Daryl's crossbow takes care of it. The gate stretches all the way open just as he grabs it. Nicholas’ face is an up-side down triangle and his hair is dark and curly. He grimaces.

"Brought dinner," Daryl grumbles.

"It's okay," Aaron tells Nicholas. "C'mon in, guys."

We follow him into the community. The sheet gate slides closed behind us first — we can see our vehicles through it.

"Before we can take this any further," Nicholas tells us, fiddling with the levers, "I need you all to turn over your weapons. To stay. You hand them over."

No one budges.

"We don't know if we wanna stay,” someone says.

"It's fine, Nicholas," Aaron says when he looks like he’ll start yelling.

"If we were gonna use them, we woulda started already."

"Lemme talk to Deanna first," Aaron says.

"Who's Deanna?" Abraham calls out.

"She knows everything you wanna know about this place," Aaron answers. "Rick. Why don't you start."

There's a growl outside.

"Sasha..." Rick says.

Sasha shoots the walker, just before the main gate shuts. Rick turns back to Aaron and Nicholas, propping Judith on his hip.

"It's a good thing we're here."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed.
> 
> Happy reading.


	59. Season 5 ~ Remember, Part 1: The Audition

“These are the Brownstone apartments, but we’re going here, to Deanna's home. If you could just wait on the porch, while you go in, one at a time, to have your audition. Rick, if you could go first...”

“Alright...”

...

“Abraham?”

“Let’s get it over with.”

...

“Rosita?”

...

“You’re up Tara...”

“Oh, jeez.”

...

“Michonne?”

“Thank you.”

...

“Daryl.”

“Hmff.”

...

“Noah...”

...

“Gabriel?”

...

“Eugene.”

...

“Sasha.”

...

“Oliver.”

"Oliver... go."

* * *

 

The house is cold inside, like it has air conditioning. I shiver and open my mouth to say hello, but my voice dies. I step across the hallway in silence. My mouth is dry. My tongue is sandpaper. I remember to let go of my Glock when I step into the empty living room. There is a couch in the middle of the room facing away to the window. Between them sits a brown armchair, and directly behind that, between two, big, curtained windows, is a full bookshelf against the wall. Everywhere, other than me, is clean; bar the dirty hand-print on the frame of the window — one of us, I know.

Out the window I see a thin peak of what looks like a church roof. It’s outside the walls, and I’m glad. After Gabriel's church, I never want to see another one again.

There's a camera mounted on the table behind the couch, aimed at the armchair. Something clinks. I twist around, facing a dining room, separated from the living room by big pillars. Past the dining room is the kitchen. I head closer, slowly. There's a rug and a circular table for four — no, five... but the fifth chair is in the corner of the room stacked with more books, like a throne for literature. There’s another bookshelf in here, too, and decorative, feather-looking plants on the walls, and expensive-looking paintings. One wall is filled with what looks like a collection of shelf brackets.

I go into the kitchen. Counters line one side of the room opposite me. There's an island with a sink and a big chandelier and a coffee maker and a cooker. Above it are sculpted, wooden faces, gazing down on the woman putting the kettle back on the stove.

I blink at her.

She's short. Shorter than me, at least. She looks old. Not old old, though. Just... old. Her hair is auburn, greying, and shoulder length. She's wearing a light blue blouse and a blue watch on her wrist. She's faced away from me.

Something clinks again.

My feet are rooted to the floorboards, like I'm a part of it. I don’t know what to do so I wait. I don't talk. I pull my beanie and thumb at Mika's bracelet on my wrist.

Clink, clink, clink.

Finally, she puts a teaspoon in the sink and turns around.

"Oh..." She jumps a fraction, then smiles. "Hello there. My apologies. I didn't hear you come in." She walks around the island, her voice like a living audio-book. "I'm making tea, would you like one?"

I shake my head no. She picks up her steaming cup with steady hands, then leads me into the living room, where the camera is She looks like she might hug me, or shake my hand. I can’t tell. I don’t want to do either.

"Come," she says, not attempting them, just gesturing her arm out to the armchair. "Talk with me. Join your audition."

I hesitate. Undeterred, she takes a seat on the big couch and drinks sips of her tea. She sets it down on the coffee table in front of her.

"I am Deanna Monroe."

I step around the couch.

"Please, take a seat."

I do. The armchair seat rubs and my ears tickle. The coffee table in front of me, between us, is full of odd objects and artefacts: candles, a china bowl filled with aniseed, more books and magazines and papers with scribbles on them.

"Is it alright with you if we film this?" Deanna asks politely, waving a hand to the camera by her head. "Our talk?"

I shrug.

"Will you talk, to me?" she asks.

I nod. “Yes, ma’am.”

"Ah..." She gasps softly. "How lovely."

I fidget, sit forward, back... forward again. I can feel the empty space behind my chair like fire in a cold room. I look at it to check it's really empty.

"What's your name?"

"Oliver."

"What a nice name."

I look at her eyes. They’re blue. Not blue like Carl's. Blue like dark, compact blue. Like a Van Gough painting Carl once showed me. Deanna's face is like that. Like a Van Gough painting.

"Tell me. Oliver what?"

"De Luca."

"How old are you, Oliver De Luca?"

"Fifteen or sixteen...”

She gives me a knowing smile.

“Fifteen," I admit.

She smiles again, the corners of her eyes wrinkling. "Travelling the fine line of childhood and adulthood. Both the best time of your life and the most terrible."

I'm not exactly sure if she's expecting me to say anything to that. I play it safe and keep my mouth shut. There's a yellow blanket rested over the back of the couch behind her. Lob-sided. I want to pull it straight. Don’t and try to think of something else instead. I look at the door I came in from, at the staircase, and the top of the landing through the banister. Is there anybody else here? Husband? Wife? Kids? Grand-kids?

"Tell me, Oliver," Deanna pulls me back. "How long have you been out there?"

"Month or so, guess."

She smiles encouragingly.

"At the start, I stayed at home when my parents turned. Hid there with my brother."

"And how long was that for?"

"Month or so. But, then we left."

"I'm sorry you lost your parents.”

I shrug and decide to tell her, "They're still there."

"Oh." Deanna squints. "I'm sorry to hear that."

I don't say anything.

I don't have anything to say.

Deanna sighs. She reaches forward. I flinch, then realise she was only taking her tea. She stops, watches me, takes a drink, then puts the mug down again.

"Are you afraid of me, Oliver?"

"No."

"But you are afraid?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

There is no slowing down. No relenting. Talking to Deanna is like standing in front of a tank — I would know.

"Have to be," I say. I'm trying to be a tank, too, but I'm more like a pushbike. "We all do."

"But you're not afraid of any of your group?" she asks. "Rick, he's your leader. Have you ever been afraid of him?"

I shrug. Deanna smiles, eyes all deep and fascinated.

"I wouldn't blame you if you were," she says. "I mean, you're all rather frightening."

Again, I shrug. “He's protected us. I trust him like family. You don’t need to be afraid of family."

Deanna watches me. "And what do you need to be afraid of, Oliver?"

"The walkers," I reply, listing the obvious, "starving, exposure... You have to be afraid of losing the people you care about. You need to be afraid of... other people... who might hurt you."

This time, Deanna does hesitate. "And... have you been hurt by other people?"

I don't say anything. Just nod.

"I am sorry to hear that."

I shrug.

She asks, "Have you ever hurt other people?"

"I've killed people. I've never hurt somebody. Not like that."

“Like what. Explain to me the difference.”

I glance at the camera and wonder who will be watching.

"Oliver?"

My eyes snap back to her.

"How is killing different from hurting?" she asks.

"People... want... to hurt people. They want to," I explain as best I can. "We have to kill people. We have to... but just sometimes."

"And you've had to kill people?"

I nod.

"How many people have you killed, Oliver?"

I tense my jaw. I hold up two fingers. "Men. One attacked our home. The other... I attacked his... and... I know I caused a lot more people to die that day."

"Why?"

"They were going to eat us."

This seems to throw her off. She takes a moment to ask her next question: "How did you all find each other? Did you all know each other before? Or did you come across each other along the way?"

"Didn't you ask the others?"

"I'm glad you asked that. Shows you're intelligent. Intuitive. Aren't missing anything. We need people like you, Oliver." I don't say anything, because she didn't answer my question. Deanna lets out a chuckle, relenting. "Yes. I did ask the others. But, I was hoping I could ask you, too. Is that alright with you?"

I shrug. “I didn't know any of them before. It was just me and my brother for a long time. Almost a year. But I lost him in a store. I didn't find him for a long time."

"For how long?"

"Five months."

"And you were by yourself? Out there?"

I nod.

"But you found him again?"

I nod. "Michonne and Daryl found me. Took me back with them. My brother was there."

Deanna smiles. "I like Michonne. Daryl? I'm still trying to get a grip on him. But I suppose you know that don't you?"

I have to cover my mouth when I find this funny.

"After they found you, then what?" Deanna asks, looking proud of herself. "Did you stay with them for a while?"

"At a prison."

Deanna nods. She knew this, I guess. She stays quiet, letting me finish.

"Rick was there. Carl. Judith. Sasha. Maggie and Glenn. We found the others after that. But, I guess you already know that too."

"I like you." Deanna grins, pointing a finger. "I like you a lot. You really don't miss anything, do you?"

I don’t tell her she’s wrong even though she is.

Deanna watches me, squinting and doing that mind reading thing again. "Where did you live before, Oliver?"

"Here. Few miles south, in another town."

"Northern Virginia was evacuated," Deanna says. "Millions of people. For a long time, there's hardly been anyone here, living or dead."

I think about that. "Guess... me and my brother were neither."

"What did you do before?"

"Huh?"

"You went to school, I presume?"

I nod.

"Did you have any part-time jobs?"

Shake.

"Did you have friends?"

I shrug.

Deanna smiles. She’s the kind of woman who has a lot of different smiles that mean a lot of different things. She says, "I was a Congress Person. In Ohio. Fifteenth District. Do you have questions?"

"This place..." I begin.

"It was supposed to be a planned community," Deanna fills me in, "with its own solar grid, cisterns, eco-based sewage filtration. Expensive. My family and I were tryin'a get back to Ohio so that I could help my district manage the crisis, and, the army stopped us on a back road and directed us here instead. They were supposed to come after too... But they didn't... So, we used the supplies we had and made the best of it. We built the wall, then more people found us, gave us help. And we had our community."

She's been behind these walls the whole time, hidden away with no idea what it's like out there.

"How did your brother die, Oliver?"

"There was a sickness. Back at the..." I stop, frown. "I... I don't remember telling you that he died."

Deanna grins knowingly. "Oliver De Luca, I am exceptionally good at reading people. If I didn't win the election, I was gonna be a professional poker player. I'm not kidding," she insists.

I smile, realising that I like Deanna, too.

"Do you want to be here?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Are you ready to be here?"

"...Yes, ma'am."

"It's four-twenty-one PM," she says, like she's giving me a key to a city. The mausoleum of all hope, like Carl told me. Not to remember time. But to be able to forget it, just for a moment, every now and then, so that all breath isn’t spent trying to conquer it.

I reach into my pocket and pull out Lizzie's watch, twisting the dial to the correct time. It feels as good as pulling at my beanie, or tapping my fingers against a table top, or tidying up, or making the bed.

"Thank you for talking with me, Oliver. It was nice to meet you."

I like how she says that, like she means it. I shake her hand even though mine is filthy. She smiles Van Goughly.

"Welcome, to Alexandria Safe Zone."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really do love Deanna's voice.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	60. Season 5 ~ Remember, Part 2: One New Fairy Tale

None of us can dance but everybody still manages to pass their audition. A woman with glasses, named Olivia, asks to take our guns. “We have a rule here that no guns are to be carried by civilians.”

It’s weird thinking of myself as a civilian.

“They're still your guns,” Deanna tells us. “You can check them out whenever you go beyond the wall. But inside here, we store them for safety.”

We start to hand them over. Carol stumbles with her rifle, apologising with silly hand gestures while the rest of us finish handing our guns over.

“Should'a brought another bin,” Olivia says.

Carol laughs. Olivia leaves, heading across the street to her house, which we are told is where the armoury and pantry are — she’s in charge of all that. When nobody is looking, Carol catches my glance, not smiling and looking like herself again, and I suddenly understand that she's playing possum.

Next, we’re given food. Apple and butternut squash soup, made on a stove. I eat like an animal. After, we’re shown across the community to two houses next door to each other, which we are allowed to occupy between ourselves. Six bedrooms each. Huge. Panelled. Shuttered windows. Lanterns outside and a barbeque, and a rocking chair.

The first house’s front-door and side-doors are pastel yellow. Inside is furnished. There are cushions, matching lamps, coffee tables, curtains and rugs. On the centre coffee table is a sculpture of an octopus, and on another coffee table by the other couch are sculptures of squid — weird-cool. And even more things like that; like the silver beetle paper weights and the hourglasses that spin and the Ferris wheel on the wall that doesn’t spin — I know because I tried. There’s a big TV and an oak chest that I don’t know what’s inside of, and a big cabinet with cool things in it like little plants and a brass globe and more paperweights — these ones are in the shape of atoms. The dining room tables and chairs match and the table even has pads to protect the floor. There’s a framed American Morse Code board on the wall, and the kitchen has an island, and two sinks. The taps work, too.

We each wash one at a time in the eight bathrooms between us. I wait for my turn in one of the en-suits while Carl showers inside, and at one point several minutes after he goes in, he pokes he head out, steam billowing after him, and pulls me inside by the wrist.

“Whoa,” I say, “you’re so clean.”

He tells me to shut up. He tells me, “Kiss me.” And I do. We’re staggering over sinks and tripping over towels, pushing and tugging and gasping, until there’s a knock on the door and Rick saying, “One at a time, please,” and I shove Carl out of the room. He’s laughing while I shut the door.

I brush my teeth, four times, until I haven’t any enamel left. It’s weird, looking at my reflection after so long. I have more scars, more facial hair, darker and more sunburned skin, and my shoulders got bigger. My eyes are the same, though. My overbite, too.

Finally, I kick off all my clothes and step in the shower. There’s this gross layer of grime and sweat on my skin, and it rubs off like damp glue under the waterflow, which is cold first, then very hot, and then perfect. My sunburn stings. I can feel every cut and scratch. Then I wash; soaping, shampooing, conditioning — even that weird blue stuff I find in a cupboard that leaves glitter dust in my hair, like I’m Cinderella at this shower is my Godmother transforming me for the ball.

I watch the dirt and soap drain away, as if everything that we've all been through is leaving with it... and it feels great.

Finally, with a towel around my waist, I leave the shower.

Carol is waiting outside for her turn.

“Look at you,” she tells me. I smile goofily, dropping my dirty clothes in a wash basket by the door, remembering to remove Lizzie’s watch from my pocket. Carol rubs a finger on my shoulder. “You’re all sparkly.”

“Lotion...” I mumble.

She goes in. Judith is unconscious in a cot that Aaron brought around. Next to it, on a chair, is a neatly folded set of clothes for me. Even a clean, burgundy beanie hat. I dress myself. The shirt is a little big, but comfy. Lastly, I fit my holster around my waist; it feels light with only Lizzie’s small blade.

* * *

 

Later, while Rick is the only person left showering, the rest of us go and bring in the supplies from the RV. Carl brings Judith in a stroller. It’s nice to see him so happy, and without his hat again. He still has the odd shoes though.

It takes a little while for us to organise and unpack so that Deana and Olivia can take our weapons and whatever else, letting us keep only our clothes and other personal belongings. We meet a few new faces, too, like Carter, a scrawny man with tight pale skin and balding brown hair, and Tobin, a tall man with a farmer-tan and a goofy smile and belted jeans that make him look like he’s a scarecrow full of straw. There’s a dog barking, and I hear kids laughing at some point, but don’t see them — I’m aware that I’m glad of this.

Finally, we head back to the main house, ‘101’ with our arms full. I’ve got my backpack and Carl and Rick’s orange duffel. Carl’s carrying Judith and a stripey supply bag that I remember from the Grove.

There is a man on the front porch. I really don't want to hand over anymore pecans today, so I avoid him by letting others go first, to maybe slip past them, but then the man speaks and I realise he isn't a stranger — no new face, just a shaven one.

“Rick?”

When he takes her, Judith cries, but then Rick coos to her, and she suddenly stops crying, and everything is okay again.

Inside, I sit with Carl on the wooden chest. Across the room, Glenn, Eugene and Rosita are all squashed up on the cough, with Maggie sitting on the arm. And the others dotted around.

Carl takes my hand.

“Everything okay?” I ask him.

“Yeah... I just...” He sighs. “I'm really glad you went to that candy shop that day.”

I look at him, suddenly a magic bean from Jack and the Bean Stalk, shooting up into the sky, like this whole day has just been one new fairy tale. And then, like it’s the easiest thing in the world, Carl tells me that he thinks I’m beautiful, for the first time anybody ever has except maybe my mom.

He gives me a minute, and when the minute is over, we help the others push couches and coffee tables around to make space for everybody. After, we go outside. Daryl’s gutting the possum on the porch.

I watch the empty second house. None of us have had a look in it yet and Carl seems to be thinking the same thing.

Rick notices.

“Go on,” he allows, “just be quick.”

“‘Kay...” Carl grabs my sleeve and drags me off the porch.

At his father’s request, Carol follows us. As we climb the second house’s steps, we see the wall behind the houses. This house is just as big as 101. Big doors, a barbeque, chairs, lanterns. Though, it has a small pile of firewood by the door, and a house mat that says ‘Home’ but I don’t believe it.

Inside, ahead, is the staircase leading upstairs, then the rest of the living area on one side; a dining room, and the kitchen after it, with a chandelier over the table and a grey couch and a glass coffee table and a TV mounted above a marble, white fireplace, and either side of that are two bookshelves built into the wall that I gawp at. All the windows have brown blinds, and the walls are all pale and some have framed paintings of flowers.

“They're like mansions,” Carl says from the kitchen as Carol closes the door behind us. She meets me by the bookshelf, examining a strange, metal feather mounted on a plaque; another propped symmetrically on the other bookshelf.

“Mhmm...” she says, moving to the window. “And they're just giving them away.” We glance at each other. She picks up a notebook and pencil from the cabinet, then steps toward the door. “You coming?”

I’m playing with two paperweights that are just one end of a bicycle on each part. Carl takes the words from my mouth: “Yeah, one sec.”

Carol leaves.

Carl and I spend a while looking through more books — Frankenstein, Edgar Allen Poe;

_‘If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.’_

_‘The true genius shudders at incompleteness, and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be.’_

_‘We loved with love that was more than love.’_

I don’t know when we started kissing, but we don't stop for anything — the taps burst and we keep on kissing; the fridge starts walking and we keep on kissing; the house catches fire and the earth splits open and the stars collapse on our heads... and we keep on kissing.

Poe thuds to the floor and I’m about to die of kissing when the only thing that actually could pull us apart goes ahead and does. Because upstairs, there’s a noise. Carl hears it too and we both stagger and look up. Footsteps. We go to the staircase. As we climb, there’s a creek in another room. Carl glances back at me. On the second floor, all the doors are open and empty inside, bar one, which is closed. Something’s inside, scuffling.

With a count to three, we barge in, knives drawn. Empty. Carl looks disappointed. I look around — the room’s unfurnished, and undecorated, board tiles for the floor, wooden dry wall, a small window. It looks like an attic, really. There’s a half-finished jigsaw puzzle laid in the corner, the pieces strewn around. Cushions and blankets are ordered against the walls and set up on a cardboard box is a fake skull wearing yellow goggles and a blue paper crown, along with a CD player, CD's, and comicbooks.

Carl picks up a comic called _Wolf Fight!_. I pick one I recognise: _Invincible_. I show it to him and he rolls his eyes.

“Dad wants us to meet them,” he says, “the other kids.”

I put invincible down.

“He met a lady,” he adds. “Said she has two kids, one's our age.”

I think about that, but I don’t say anything. We go back next door. Some ladies came by earlier, we’re told, and left some Shepard’s pies for us all to eat for supper.

“Alright...”

* * *

 

Later, we all set up for the night in the main house. Carol’s drawing a map of Alexandria into the notebook. I sit on the floor, against her knees, reading the _Wolf fight!_. Sitting at the table with Noah and Abraham, Carl is drawing for the first time, I think, since the prison. I think he’s drawing me; he keeps glancing up at me. But every time I try to crane my neck to see, he hides it.

At some point, Michonne leaves the bathroom — Carl and I had made a bet on how long she would be in there. I got closest.

“How long was I in there for?”

“Twenty minutes.”

“I could not stop brushing.”

I mouth, “I win,” across the room and Carl throws me an energy bar. I catch it, say, “Thanks, scrub,” and put it in my pocket.

Rick and Michonne are talking, and then they go in the kitchen for more privacy. Someone asks Carol if she’s been assigned a job yet, and she says, “Cook, for the seniors and a few of the busy moms.”

I wasn’t expecting this, but... I guess I was, too. Tara, Glenn, and Noah are runners. Gabriel’s been given his own church again, in a garage across the street from Deanna's house. Maggie is helping Deanna run the place, like an secretary, more or less. Eugene’s an engineer. Abraham’s on construction work. And Rosita’s a medical assistant.

I’m asked what I do now, but I don’t know, so I don’t say anything.

“You help out with chores,” Carol tells me. “Look after Judith.” I try not to look too disheartened. She must be able to tell, because she strokes my hair.

There’s a knock at the front-door.

Rick answers. It’s Deanna. She swoons over his face for a minute:—“Wow... I didn't know what was under there.” Rick blushes but she moves on. “Listen, I don't mean to interrupt, I just wanted to stop by and see how you were all settling in...”

She looks at us all.

“Oh my... you're staying together. Smart.”

“No one said we couldn't.”

“You said you were a family,” she tells him. “That's what you said.”

Rick looks a little taken aback.

Deanna smiles. “It's absolutely amazing to me how people with completely different backgrounds and nothing in common, can become that. Don't you think?”

We do, but we don’t have to say it aloud.

“Everybody said you gave them jobs,” Rick says.

“Yeah.” Deanna hums, smiling with her eyes. “Part of this place... Looks like the Communists won after all.”

Rick smiles. “Well, you didn't give me one.”

“I have,” Deanna says. “I just haven't told you yet. Same with Michonne. I'm closing in on something for Sasha. And I'm just trying to figure Mr. Dixon out. But I will.” She looks at me and I wait for her to tell me something similar, but she nods to Rick, says, “You look good,” and leaves.

I sink inside while Rick closes the door.

Carol goes to the bathroom and Carl comes and sits with me. He puts an arm around my shoulder and squeezes comfortingly, then shows me the drawing he made. It’s great. I groan and whisper, “My nose is so long,” and he says, “It is,” like it’s a compliment, and kisses my cheek.

“Here,” I say, unwrapping the energy bar and splitting it in half. I give him the bigger piece. “Share.”

“Thanks.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oliver has another beanie hat now. Whoop.
> 
> And all of you that are doing your finals/exams over the next few whatevers, good fucking luck! You can do it!
> 
> Sorry this was a few days late, but I started a new job and everything was so busy. The next chapter should be up in a few days, and it's a special one!
> 
> Preview: The boys are meeting the Alexandrian kids :D
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	61. Season 5 ~ Remember, Part 3: Beasts, Dinos and Boys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys are meeting the Alexandrian kids.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keep an open mind for this one. It’s a bit different. There’s a whole centred bit at the start in an anonymous person’s perspective. It might not make much sense yet, but it should as you go along. Hope it’s okay.

_From the corner of my eye_  
_To the back of my mind_  
_I recognise what you mean to me_  
_And though the corners of our pictures_  
_Are a long time frayed_  
_They still symbolise what you mean to me_

_You ask me to remember_  
_A kiss it but a kiss_  
_Like I’d be a fool to want more from you_  
_And I’m gone in a while_  
_I’ll be gone in a while_  
_It’s all that I do...’_

“You ever look at something for so long that you think you can see what you’re looking at back when it was much younger, like it’s showing you more than what you’re looking for?”

“Oh, brother... Nell’s at it again.”

“Shut up, Ron. What were you saying?”

“Just... look... the sky. Blue, today. But sometimes I think I can see the meteorite coming, about to blow us all to smithereens... except that was millions of years ago.”

“I dunno, man. Maybe you were a dinosaur in your past life.”

“I like that. I was reading a book the other day all about dinosaurs. Did you know that birds are descendants from them? That they’re classified as raptors? Cool, huh?”

“Yeah. Cool.”

“Enid’s right: you’re not weird or geeky at all.”

“Shut up, guys.”

“Thank you, Mikey. How very Parasaurolophus of you.”

“Para-what?”

“Parasaurolophus. They were one of the most harmless dinosaurs.”

“That’s right. Mikey, the harmless loaf.”

“Hey!”

“Ignore him. Loafs are also the prettiest, I think.”

“You’re crazy, Nell. Did you get into Mr. Anderson's beer stash or something?”

“No.”

“Maybe you should've.”

“What dino would I be?”

“You, Ron, would be a Velociraptor.”

“Cool! I get a big dagger on my foot.”

“Yeah, well, I was thinking more of this one raptor I read about. Its fossils were found tangled with a Wendiceratops. The raptor sunk its claw in the wendi’s throat and got stuck there, and in the end they both died...”

“Oh...”

“Well, you’re just... reckless, sometimes... Anyway, Enid’s an Ornithomimus. Mysterious, agile, beautiful. More teeth than people expect.”

“And what would you be?”

“I don’t know. Probably that one in Jurassic Park with the colourful crest that spat venom into the guy’s face.”

 “Okay... Hey, you see that new group they found yesterday? My mom talked to one of them, cut his hair. She thinks they seem okay. There are two guys, around our age. She invited them over later.”

“Really?”

“Mom says they’ve been out there a while, so we should try to take it easy on them.”

“Why? Are they crazy?”

“No, Mikey. Jesus. You make them sound like rescue dogs.”

“Well, aren’t they? Nell. Enid. You both were when you got here, pretty much.”

“I saw them...”

“You were out there again?”

“How many are there?”

“Sixteen, I think.”

“What are they like?”

“Did they seem tough?”

“Scary?”

“Terrifying.”

“Come on, Enid...”

“Fine... There were ten or so guys. One looks like a priest, another like some kinda wrestler. One's got a crossbow.”

“The rest were the kids coming over and women, right? Less scary-looking?”

“One had a katana. Another looks like a Spanish Lara Croft. The old lady doesn’t look too scary, I guess. Or the boys.”

“Did you talk to any of them?”

“No.”

“Right, because you don’t talk to anybody — Mutiny! Ron, dude! You just flattened me with a missile!”

“With love from your baby peach princess.”

“From a _bitch_ more like!”

“Language!”

“Sorry, Mom!”

“Hey. Heard there was a baby, too.”

“Like a real baby?”

“It was tiny.”

“So, when are they coming over?”

“Little while, guess.”

“Cool. I’ll come by.”

“Where are you going?”

“Gotta go take Bean for a walk. Back in a bit.”

“You can bring him back here, if you want?”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. My dad won’t be home until later. And Mom likes dogs anyway.”

“Thanks. Bye.”

“Later, Nell.”

“Bye, Nell!”

* * *

 

After a tangled, squashed night in the main house’s living room together, the first thing we do once we’re all ready is go for a walk around the community, getting a look at the place.

At some point, we meet Nathalie and Bob Miller, who are an old married couple, who, before the turn, had hundreds of children and grandchildren. They ask me and Carl to stay with them for a little while for some pie, and spend most of the time paying attention to Judith, which she hates, but puts up with for pie. It’s home-made, with apples from the apple trees Aaron told us about. There’s no milk or eggs but it still tastes magical.

Carl’s standing between the armchairs Mr. and Mrs. Miller are occupying and cooing to Judy from. I’m sitting on the edge of the deck, eating and watching Rick across the street, talking to a blonde woman with blonde hair and pale clothes.

“Are you two brothers?” Mrs. Miller asks us.

Carl looks at me, like a deer caught in headlights, then looks at her again. “Oh. N—No. We’re...”

I think about when Rick took us aside this morning, just before we left, and told us to be smart about how much we told people here about us. We don’t know them, and we don’t know how they might react to some things. Aaron and Eric are boyfriends, but they spend a lot less time in the community than the rest of them do, and there might be a reason for it... maybe. Rick said it’s better to be safe than sorry.

“Friends,” Carl adds. “We’re friends.”

“Oh, Oliver,” Mrs. Miller says, and I realise my face is twisted up all over the place, “don’t you like your pie?”

I hum something and stuff my mouth to prove I do like it. Mrs. Miller smiles. Mr. Miller, on the other hand, looks like he’s smelling something fishy. I try not to look at him, thinking about how I haven’t had to hide in the closet for months, and even then it wasn’t like this. This feels like back before, at home, when I used to think people knew, sometimes. Mom. Dad. Patrick... Sometimes I thought the kettle knew.

Now though, I think I’m being clocked by the porch table. I narrow my eyes at it and tell it in my head, “Keep your legs shut,” and it does.

* * *

 

At some point, sometime later, Rick comes over with the blonde woman. She’s very pretty, and has a warm face and a messy ponytail. She introduces herself as Jessie Anderson and invites us to her house to meet one of her two sons and his friends. I feel my body turn to cement.

We follow her to her house, which is next door to the second house. Rick takes Judith. There’s a swinging seat on Jessie’s porch and the panel walls are pale blue. Rick stands on the porch as we go inside, like he’s not sure what to do with himself, but when Jessie says goodbye, he waves at us, then leaves.

Jessie’s house is like the rest of the houses in Alexandria, except there’s a liquor cabinet in the living room with tall glass bottles, and I think Jessie’s a painter. There is a smudge of purple on her nose, and by the windows, an easel with a half-finished painting. Carl stares hungrily at it, and at all the other finished works up on the walls or left to dry along the floor.

“Excuse the mess,” Jessie tells us, catching me looking at a small turtle sculpture on the inglenook, “things are a little hectic at the moment. I've been working on a project with the boys.”

“Project?” Carl asks. We follow her through the kitchen where tiny toy soldiers are lined up along the island, aiming guns at us.

“Yeah. Kids and I are building a sculpture of an owl. Your dad, uh... he just, kinda, ran right into it a minute ago. But if anything, he probably made an improvement. We just, can't seem to get the eyes right.”

Briefly, Oliver and I look at each other.

“Right,” I agree with her, “the eyes.”

Jessie chuckles. “That's what your dad said.” We go into the hallway, where one door is open. I can see a garage through it. The staircase is ahead and Jessie calls up. “Ron! Come down.”

There’s music playing from upstairs. Paolo Nutini.

“Okay, Mom!”

His sentence has my mind spinning, and then Jessie's son, Ron Anderson, strolls around the banister at the top of the staircase and comes down to meet us. He’s tall, a little older than me and Carl, with pale, spotty skin and messy reddish-brown hair that he seems to have a habit of touching a lot, because he must rake his fingers through it three times before he’s stood in front of us at the foot of the stairs.

“Hi, there.”

I think I faint inside.

“Sweetie,” Jessie says. “This is Carl. And this is Oliver.”

We exchange nods. Ron puts his hands in his pockets and sways back and forward on his heels, like he’s a tin-man on a gear that works perfectly. My gear probably needs more oil. No, mine probably has missing parts. I’m a rigid, rusty, tin boy in need of an upgrade. He’s so... normal. He even smells nice. I wonder what I smell like — probably not nice; walkers and dirt doesn’t come off easy. It sticks under your skin.

“Nice to meet you both,” he says. “I'm Ron, but... uh, guess Mom's told you that, huh?”

I feel short standing here. Am I too short? What’s a normal height for my age?

“Uh... Mom?”

“Oh! Right, I’m going. Sorry,” Jessie puts her hands up, backs away back, and returns to her painting. “Be good.”

“We will,” Ron scripts, then waves us to follow him. “Guys, come on upstairs. I'll introduce you to the others.”

I don’t want to go, and I touch Carl’s hand when Ron’s back is turned, but Carl pulls me along before I can say anything. We go upstairs — Ron and Carl do the talking.

“We're almost always here after school, so you guys can come by any time.”

“Wait, you go to school?”

“Uh, it's in a garage... Little kids go in the morning and then it's us in the afternoon.” Ron talks with his hands a lot. “Uh... I mean, probably you guys, too, right?”

Carl glances at me. I think of storytime, and he must think of it, too, because he smiles. He looks at Ron again and smiles, “Probably.”

We get to an open door at the end of the hallway. We’d been able to partially see the girl sitting on the bed reading a comic, but now we see her fully. She’s about the same age as us, maybe older, pale skin and long brown hair, with a sleeveless shirt on, black boots, and a flannel tied around her waist. She doesn’t look up to us.

Ron’s room is messy; clothes strewn all over the place, unmade bed. Posters on the walls, and by the bed is a skateboard and a wooden baseball bat. Another guy is sitting across the room, playing a racing game. He looks lanky and skinny, with black hair and a square head, wearing a polo shirt and a sweater vest.

Ron taps a fist on the door and switches off the stereo.

“Guys. This is Carl and Oliver.”

“Carl, Oliver. This is Mikey, and Enid.”

Mikey waves. Enid doesn’t look at us. I look at her, though. She’s the girl in the window. The girl from yesterday.

“Hi,” Mikey says.

“Hi,” Enid seconds, still not looking up.

Ron steps over and puts a hand on her shoulder — I guess this is what boyfriends and girlfriends do when they introduce each other. Boyfriends and boyfriends, on the other hand, just smile and try to look polite, with a respectable foot and a half distance between each other.

“Enid's from outside, too,” Ron says. “She and another girl just got here eight months ago.”

She glances at us. I think she recognises me, too, and I expect her to say so, but she just looks at her comic again, disinterested. I look at Carl and he’s got a face like something tastes bad.

Carl breaks the silence. “Oh... are these, yours?”

He hands over the comics we found yesterday.

“Sorry.” Ron chuckles. “We didn't know you guys got that house.”

“We mostly just hang up there and listen to music,” Mikey smiles. He motions to _Wold Fight!_. “That one's Enid's. The other’s Nell’s — the girl who came with Enid.”

Enid snatches them both, then tosses them to the end of the bed. This is going a lot worse than I thought it would. Is it me? Am I doing something wrong? Did I upset her? I look at Carl and he looks just as lost as me.

“Yeah,” Ron answers. “Girl who came here with Enid. She’ll come by soon.”

Carl nods.

Ron motions to the TV.

“Wanna play some video games?” he offers, talking with his hands again. “Or... Mikey's house has a pool table, but his dad's kinda strict about it, so...”

“It's okay,” Mikey grins. “He's at work.”

I look at Carl again, hoping he might know what to say, but he looks lost, like he’s forgotten how to be a boy and he has. His face is pale and his eyes are welling and he’s shaking.

“Erm...” He swallows.

I want to reach out and take his hand, leave and go back to the house, but Ron steps in front of me and says, “Sorry... I guess we come on kinda strong. Uh, we can just hang out?”

“You don't even have to talk if you don't want to,” Mikey tells him.

“Yeah,” Ron agrees. “Took Enid three weeks to say something.”

She looks at him, unimpressed. “Pull it together, sport.”

Carl’s chin shakes. He looks at me, then at the floor, until finally, he pulls it together and smiles at the others. “Let's, um... Let's play some video games.”

“Cool. Yeah.”

* * *

 

We play for a while. It’s hard to be invested in playing when I’m so anxious, even worse when I know Carl is struggling, too, so it’s a welcomed distraction from trying to play when we hear a door opening downstairs.

“Hey!”

“Nell?”

“Yeah! I’m going to make a drink, any of you want one?” Her voice is local, like all of ours except Carl’s.

Ron looks at us for our orders, but we all shake our heads so he says, “We’re good for drinks! Is my mom home?”

“She just left.”

Ron taps my arm with his controller and I jump.

“Hey, focus, man. You’re dying.”

I keep playing.

“I'm letting him off the leash!” Nell says.

“Okay — hey, you guys aren’t afraid of dogs, are you?”

Carl and I shrug.

“Ah, dog’s pretty chill anyway,” Ron says, and then there is bounding up the staircase, “most of the time...” The dog trots across Ron's bedroom, sniffing around Enid first — she actually smiles at it. It's a Border Collie, white, brown and black, with some spotty patches along its back and tail and belly and legs. He sniffs around the room. He has only one eye, bright blue, while the other socket it sewn shut — he stares at Carl and I for a second, then greets us calmly. When the dog greets me though, he gets progressively more upset, until he’s whining and rubbing himself on me.

“He... really likes you,” Mikey says.

“What’s gotten into you?” Ron asks it.

He knocks me a step backwards and I laugh. And then it hits me. I know this dog.

“Bean?”

He gets more upset, his paws up on my chest now.

“Bean the beast!” I say. “Bean!”

“What the...”

“What?”

“Guys, what the hell?”

Suddenly, another thing hits me. Right in the face — I’m just a boy with a hole through his head now — now, because, _right now,_ Penelope walks into Ron’s bedroom.

“Holy shit...” she whispers. “Ollie?”

She’s so tall and boyish, with skin all freckles and moles, and green eyes and ginger hair. A glass of juice falls from her hand and hits the carpet with a splash and a thud, spilling over her shoes. She steps back, like she might run away, and then she’s coming forward, reaching out, and with three large steps across the room, we grab each other.

“Hey,” she gasps. I’m stunned, not sure what to do or say or think. She must see that I’m looking around her, expecting to see her sister, Drippy, or anybody else, but she just shakes her head and says, “It's just me.”

I almost say, “Me, too,” but I catch myself, realising it’s not true. She looks so sad. “I missed you,” I say.

Her hair sticks at odd angles to her forehead, wet from tears and sweat.

“You had a haircut,” I croak. “It was so long before.”

“It wasn’t very systematic.”

“So... you two know each other, I'm guessing?”

“Kinda,” she tells Ron, and laughs, like she’s embarrassed.

“Erm... how, exactly?” Mikey asks.

“Wait...” Ron says. “It’s him.”

“Ollie from home?” Mikey seconds. They both look at me like I just crapped gold. Penelope’s laughing at me. I feel like a walking hurricane, so I wipe my face and sniff a few times.

“Oliver?”

Carl’s voice reminds me I exist, so I look around at him, aware of the jolt in my stomach. I start to gag.

“Oliver — oh, crap.” He grabs me, drags me into the en-suit. “Here, quick...”

 I yack into the toilet. Carl rubs my back, holding back my hair. I throw up for so long, until finally, I'm dry heaving, and I can sit back and catch my breath. Carl grabs toilet paper. I wipe. Penelope’s watching me across the room; Ron at the door.

“Is he okay?”

“Does he look okay?”

“No. He looks like hell.”

“Jesus, Ron, shut up.”

“I was kidding.”

“What do we do?”

“I’m fine,” I tell them all, groaning it.

“Mikey's gone to get your parents,” Penelope says.

I laugh. “What?”

Carl says something but I don’t hear it right.

“My parents are dead,” I add. “Back home...” I stop before I cry.

“I’m sorry,” she says anyway. “I thought...”

My mouth burns.

“I'll go find my mom,” Ron says.

“Thanks,” Carl says, and then it's just us. Penelope, me, and Carl, in that order, with our backs to the wall and Bean sitting directly opposite us.

I hug him.

“I'm Carl,” I hear behind me.

“Nell. Or, you know... Penelope. Most people just call me Nell though.”

Ron comes back. “I couldn’t find my mom, but I thought I’d get you water?” I drink and he sits in the doorway on a beanbag, and then the only noise I can hear is Enid turning the pages of her comic in the bedroom... until the front door opens downstairs.

“Boys?!”

“We're up here, Dad,” Carl calls out.

Rick comes up. I do my best to wipe my face, watching him swing around the door frame into the bathroom.

“Hi, Mr. Grimes. Nice to m—”

“What happened?” Rick growls, stunning Ron to silence. I can see Mikey poking his head in, looking just as terrified. Bean grumbles but Penelope shushes him.

“We're okay, Dad.”

“Ollie isn't feeling very well,” Penelope explains.

“I’m sorry?” Rick blinks, then realises she means me. He blinks again. “Oh. Right, uh...”

“I'm Nell Rostenkowski.”

“Rick Grimes,” he introduces, then rubs the back of his neck.

“Yeah, uh... Ollie isn’t well, so... he should probably go back to your house? If he wants to?”

“Boys?”

We both get up. I’m humiliated, but thankfully nobody seems angry at me.

“Later, guys.”

I nod. Carl waves.

“See you around?” Penelope asks.

“Yeah,” Carl says, looking at me. “We’ll see you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was One Day by Paolo Nutini.
> 
> I liked writing how insecure Ron and the kids made the boys. I haven't really written that before. Anyway... So, I'd like to tell you that I totally planned this right from the beginning. Buuut, *nervous laugh* no. In truth, it's just a case of biasly wanting Nell in the story.
> 
> Also Parasaurolophus, the harmless loaf, is my favourite dinosaur. Edit several years after first writing this: I went to a museum in London a few weeks ago and the loaf blew my mind. Ugh. Such a good dinosaur. What a good loafy boy. Ugh. Fuck. Good loaf.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	62. Season 5 ~ Remember, Part 4: Back from the Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one’s in ya boi Carl’s head.

Back at the main house, Oliver spends a while sitting in the kitchen, not saying a word. His hands are still, for once, but I can see his mind twisting inside out of itself.

I explain everything while Dad makes sandwiches. Some of the others are around, going about their afternoon, until food’s done and we eat, except Oliver, who, without touching anything, says something about his book, then gets up and retreats upstairs alone. The rest of us try not to worry too much. He doesn’t seem upset, just... needs to be alone for a while.

I’ve already explained everything.

After a few hours, Penelope comes around, asking to see him. I take her upstairs, her dog, Bean, following. We find Oliver in one of the bedrooms. It has two single beds in it; one’s got a yellow comforter and the other is blue. There’s a desk and an en-suite, and the room is bright, with windows overlooking the community, white, painted walls decorated with posters; a few that have been ripped down with just the torn edges still stuck up. We don’t know who lived here before, but they left other things, like a small, model, soda bottle-rocket, a few books and a small, unfinished, home-made bird house.

“Penelope... Nell... is here to see you,” I say, after knocking a few times.

“Err... yeah, come in, guys.”

We do. I’m carrying a plate. “Dad says you should try to eat.” He accepts this and puts the plate in his lap. We sit on the bed with him. Bean sniffs at the food, but after he’s waved away, he lies on the floor.

Penelope brushes her hair behind her ears, even though it’s too short. “I... just came to check on you. And to hang out with you, if... you wanted?”

Oliver nods, and Penelope looks relieved.

“Oh. Thanks for returning the comics, by the way.”

“Yeah,” I say, “sure.”

Finally, Oliver speaks: “I... didn't know you’d be here.”

Penelope laughs. “No kidding.”

“Sorry,” he tells her, “I just...”

“It’s okay.” Penelope shrugs. “Your best friend just came back from the dead. I’d be freaked out, too... _I am._ ”

He seems to appreciate this.

Penelope takes off her coat. It’s big and leather and brown, and under it she’s wearing several more layers, and I get this feeling that she’s a very small person under all her clothes.

After a while, the small talk turns into bigger talk, and it seems almost normal having her around. She doesn’t stay for long, though. But when she leaves, I can see as Oliver leaves to walk her home that he already feels better.

While he’s gone, Dad knocks on the door. “Hey...” He comes in. “Just saw them off. How was Ron's house? Apart from, you know...”

“What do you think of this place?” I ask.

Dad walks around the bed and takes a seat at the end. I don’t sit up — I didn’t realise how tiring talking to people and playing videogames is.

“Well, I think it seems... nice,” he says.

“Yeah,” I agree. “I like it here. I like the people. But... they're weak. And I don't want us to get weak, too.”

Dad nods and looks away for a beat. “I'm glad you're making friends.”

The quiet is comfortable and makes me think of picking green-beans in the prison vegetable garden.

“You look good with a shave, Dad.”

He grins, the corners of his eyes wrinkling.

“I'll teach you to shave soon, if you want?”

I smile. “That'd be cool.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Starting off slow with Penelope. This will be the only chapter for a while that focusses on mostly just her.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	63. Season 5 ~ Remember, Part 5: Follow Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back with Ollie boi.

The next morning, I wake up without a nightmare. I haven’t had one since getting here — Alexandria’s keeping them away.

Carol’s awake early, getting ready upstairs. I find her on my way back from the bathroom. “Morning,” she says, wearing a bright blue cardigan, a pale blouse, some high-waisted khaki pants, and the kind of shoes that old people wear. She sees the way I look at her, and tells me, “If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all.”

“No, you look great, Carol,” I say. “Very... domestic.”

She looks pleased with herself.

“You going to work?” I ask.

She nods, putting in some earrings.

“What’s that all about anyway?” I ask, leaning against the door.

“What?”

“You know, playing helpless housewife,” I answer. “Playing possum.”

“I'm kinda excited, really.”

“You didn’t answer me.”

She gets distracted when she drops her earring, looking under the desk for it.

I tut and walk away. “Whatever. You know what you're doing. I trust you.”

“Hey. Hold on.” She puts in the earring and meets me on the landing, running a hand through my tangled hair. “So many cow licks... I can cut it for you.”

“ _No._ ”

“Have you taken a shower yet?” she asks.

“I had one the day we got here,” I say, dodging away from her hands.

“Two days ago...”

“So?”

“So, sunshine, you need to shower.”

It occurs to me that I’m expected to wash every day now.

“Oh. And, get into the habit of using deodorant every day, too.”

I groan.

“I mean it,” she insists, and I follow her downstairs, making myself a bowl of cereal while she leaves the house. Daryl’s on the porch, and she tells him, “Time to punch the clock and make the casseroles.”

“What?” he asks.

“Making dinner for the older people,” she explains. “Moms who need a break. People who can’t cook... Get to meet a lot of the neighbours that way.”

Daryl snorts.

“Have you taken a shower yet?” she asks him.

“M-hm.”

“Gosh, you, too? Take a shower. I’m gonna wash that vest, we need to keep up appearances, even you.”

“Yeah, I ain’t startin’ now.”

“You're setting a bad example.”

Another snort.

“I'm gonna hose y’all down in your sleep!” she yells as she goes.

I hear Daryl retort back, “You look ridiculous!”

* * *

 

Carol’s at work. Rosita’s at the clinic. Eugene, the solar panels. Maggie’s at Deanna's house. Noah, Glenn and Tara are on a dry run with Deanna's son, Aiden, and Mikey's father, Nicholas. Abraham’s outside the wall doing construction, and Gabriel is in his church. Rick and Michonne are out together. And I haven’t seen Sasha, but I know she’s not in the house. Daryl either. Judith is — asleep in her cot. Carl and I? We’re told to do chores, to look after Judith, and to go to school, but we were also told to shower, too, so that’s what we do for most of the morning. I think I die a million times; if Alexandria has a drought, it’s our fault entirely.

After that though, we do all the other things we’re asked, except school.

“Mom always wanted us to live in a place like this,” Carl says at one point while doing laundry — I don’t join him in the utility room because it makes me feel uncomfortable, but I do help him put the wet clothes on the line outside. Carl adds, “Sorry you don’t like it here so much.”

“I do,” I say. “Well... I could.”

“You don’t want to go to school, or hang out with the others.”

I shrug. “Can't stay in one place for too long.”

Carl looks guilty, messing with a hourglass paperweight. Then suddenly, he glances out the window. I look, too, and watch Enid heading to the wall behind the house. She uses wooden poles to climb one of the beams, a brown towel at the top to climb over, and then she’s disappearing on the other side.

We follow at once, keeping quiet so she doesn’t hear us. She took the towel with her, so we have to be careful at the top, where the wall is sharp, and then we’re outside the community and rushing into the forest. I spot a shape moving in the distance through the trees. It’s her, strolling through the brush ahead. I dodge behind a tree, pulling Carl to stop before she hears us. He sees her when I point, staring like he’s never seen a girl before. It’s at this point that I might suddenly become a little jealous, perhaps.

“Follow me,” he whispers when she's far enough away, and like a sheep, I do.

Sometime later, Enid stops suddenly. I dart behind a tree. Carl, too. He’s making too much noise — I hear Enid break into a run, look, and see a flash of purple sleeve and long brown hair as she disappears into the forest.

Carl rushes past me, but she's long gone. He looks back at me, disappointed. I shrug and pull at my beanie.

“Sorry,” Carl apologises.

“Whatever.” I shrug again. “Guess it's normal. Like you said: You’re not... gay.”

He frowns. “What?”

“You know, you're — she's...”

Carl tilts his head. “What? A girl?”

“Yes.”

Carl snorts and I realise I’m an idiot, and when I say so, he says, “Yeah, you are.”

“I saw her,” I tell him, changing topic, “the day we got here — she was outside the wall, in one of the burned houses.”

“That's what you were looking at? And why you were looking at her funny at Ron’s?”

“I... Yeah.”

He smiles and steps over. “It's just... I want to know why she doesn’t like us.”

“Why do you care so much?” He doesn’t answer me, so I keep talking. “Because this all doesn't seem to be just you simply wanting her to like you.”

“Because what if she knows?!” Carl argues, then stops. He kicks the ground and sends dirt flying. “What if she... tells?”

“Carl...”

“Gabriel told me something,” he blurts. “Outside the barn, that day Aaron brought the RVs...” Ge looks at me for a long time before he keeps talking. “He said that we were wrong. That we were unnatural, being together. What if Enid thinks that, too? What if they all do?”

I swallow.

“Do you believe it?” I ask. “What Gabriel said?”

Carl inhales. “No.”

“You hesitated.”

“I know...” He sighs. “Look, I didn't want to tell you — I knew it'd only upset you.”

“So you were just going to pretend?”

“ _No!_ Oliver, I don’t think those things. I never would. It’s just... hard to hear it.”

I understand that, so I calm down. Carl looks relived, and steps forward and kisses me. It’s a nice kiss — one of the long, important ones.

“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything sooner,” he says. “I just didn’t want you to worry about me.”

I nod. “Want to head back?”

“No,” Carl says. “Let’s stay out for a while. Explore.”

“Okay...”

We pick a deer path and follow it until we reach the same road we came into Alexandria from, so we go back into the forest and follow another deer path. We’re careful, with our hands never too far away from our knives, and occasionally with our hands tangled with each others hands, until finally, we come to an old shack. Next to it is a large mound of trash; old furniture and wood shavings and rotting plants.

Crouched next to the mound, however, is Rick, searching for something. He throws an old blender aside and stands up when he hears walkers nearby. Carl and I step out, expecting him to reprimand us before taking care of the dead, but he just nods and says, “Get ready.”

We do. Rick, with my machete, takes the walker on the right. Carl, with his knife, takes another on the left. And I, with Lizzie’s knife, take the dude in the middle. He’s missing a hand. I kick him in the kneecap, then I sink my blade through his forehead. Just as swiftly, Carl and Rick are finished too, except a fourth walker has joined in so Carl and I stand back while Rick takes it out. I watch this happen — until suddenly a something swipes my foot out from under me and I hit the ground. Crawling from under an old carpet in the mound of trash, a walker grabs my leg and pulls. Carl yells for me, kicks it, and I scamper out of its reach.

It’s stuck, reaching out and growling. I stare, out of breath. Rick grabs a steel pipe, but Carl stops him.

“Dad...”

Rick hands it over. Carl’s hands are dripping in walker blood while he squares up to the walker, then sends the jagged edge down through its skull.

* * *

 

As we head back to Alexandria, Rick is furious at us — more because we left Judith alone rather than because we snuck out. Carl and I follow him along the wall, listening to his father’s lecture, with the gate up ahead, when we hear the arguing inside.

“You tied up walkers!”

“It killed our friend! You obey my orders out there!”

“Back off, Aiden...”

“C'mon, man. Take a step back.”

“Aiden! What is going on?”

“This guy’s got a problem with the way we do things... Why'd you let these people in, Mom?”

“Because we actually know what we're doing out there!” we hear, and see Glenn punch Aiden across the face. Suddenly, people are running and shouting and Rick is thrusting his supply bag into Carl's arms. We watch from a distance. Nicholas is sent to the floor, too, with a tackle from Daryl. Rick grabs his shoulders, forcing Daryl off him.

Someone shuts the gate behind us and Carl and I watch Maggie and Michonne join the argument. Aiden stands up. Michonne squares up to him.

“You wanna wind up on your ass again?” she asks.

He recoils like a snail.

Nicholas coughs and clutches his throat, giving terrified glances to Daryl, who prowls like a wild lion, with Rick pacing along with him to make sure he doesn't attack again.

“I want everyone to hear me, okay?!” Deanna orders. “Rick and his people are part of this community now, in all ways! As equals! Understood?!”

She glares at her son. Aiden shrugs. “Understood.”

“All of you, turn in your weapons!” Deanna orders. “And you two...” She points at Aiden and Nicholas. “...come talk to me.”

Most people begin to disperse. Mr. and Mrs. Miller watch Carl and I as they pass — I realise we’re holding hands, and I let go quickly. Penelope’s walking towards us, Bean close on her heel. For a second, my legs almost give out under me, except she’s not walking towards us but towards Enid, who’s standing a few feet away. I hadn’t noticed her. Carl hadn't either. They whisper amongst themselves for a minute.

“I'd like you to be our Constable,” Deanna is telling Rick, then, to Michonne. “And you, too. Will you accept?”

Taken aback, Rick nods. “Okay.”

Michonne, too, looks like she’s been hit by a baseball bat. “Yeah, I'm in.”

Daryl scoffs angrily, grabbing his crossbow from the floor and leaving.

“Thank you,” Deanna tells Glenn.

“For what?”

“For knocking him on his ass.”

With a confused nod, Glenn walks away.

Penelope and Enid are still whispering to each other. I don’t know what about, just that Enid snaps, “No!” at some point and Penelope looks like she’s just been smacked.

She says, “You're gonna get yourself—”

“I’m fine,” Enid retorts.

Penelope walks away.

Enid sees us watching. She looks sad.

“You don't like us, do you?” Carl asks.

She frowns, pulls her backpack over her shoulder, and walks away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	64. Season 5 ~ Remember, Part 6: Not Too Much

After Deanna’s insistence, I’m forced to give Lizzie’s knife up. I know it’s safe in Olivia’s armoury, but I still don’t trust it; it has a bad reputation and I should keep an eye on it. But I can’t, so I try to think of something else.

Before supper, Ron comes around to the main house and invites us to hang out with him and Mikey, since they’re done at school.

“You guys missed it.”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“It’s cool. You’re new. We get it.”

Ron has that Bon Jovi song in his head — _Whoa! We’re half way there! Whoa! We’re livin’ on a prayer!_ The four of us go to the lake and see who can throw stones the farthest.

“I win,” Carl says.

“Barely,” Ron says, knocking his shoulder.

Carl laughs.

“You’re such a sore loser,” Mikey says.

“Oh yeah?” Ron argues. “Funny coming from a guy whose daddy got gimp-choked earlier today.”

“Not funny,” Mikey says, and luckily doesn’t seem to link Carl or me to what happened between Daryl and his father. “I hate my life,” he complains. “The guy’s driving me crazy. Even worse after today.”

Ron pets him on the head like a dog.

Then Nell is coming over, alone — not even with Bean. Carl and I glance at each other across Mikey and Ron, who are waving to her, and we think the same thing; that she’s about to tell them. She doesn’t. She just sits next between Mikey and Carl.

“No Enid?” Ron asks.

“She’s not feeling it,” she answers.

Another nervous glance between Carl and I. Nell catches it, and I have a heart attack. Luckily, she doesn’t say anything, and just opens a grey notebook.

“Hey,” Mikey asks, “did you get Clovarch to the Mage's lair yet? And have they found the captured explorers? And what about those weird gems in the silver pool?”

“You write?” Carl asks.

She nods, then answers Mikey: “Clovarch finds the explorers and the gems aren’t really gems, that’s all I’ll tell you.”

Mikey looks thwarted, like he might fizz out of his own skin.

“Guys!”

A small boy runs across the street — about eleven or twelve, with short, strawberry-blonde hair and freckly skin. Ron introduces him as Sam, his brother.

“I brought your skateboard,” Sam tells him, “like you asked.”

“Good,” Ron says, and takes it. He skates along the street and back, and Sam watches him, looking awkward.

“Uh... can I hang out with you all?”

“Sure,” most of us say, or shrug, at least, except Ron, who yells back, “Nope!”

Nell tuts. “Hey, man,” she says. “You wanna play soccer?”

“Yeah!”

We all play, but like always with soccer, I lose interest quickly. Carl seems to, too, but he doesn’t let up. I do. I ask if I can use Ron’s skateboard.

“You know how?”

I nod. Truth is, I’m really good at skating. Even if once, when I was younger, I broke my arm trying to learn.

While the others continue their game, I skate up and down the street. Regular. Goofy. Regular again. I even manage a few ollies. It’s great. As easy as I remember. Like swimming downstream. At some point, Carl must finally get tired of playing soccer because he meets me on the curb.

He asks me to teach him. He’s not very good, and clings to my shoulders when the board stars moving without his permission.

I laugh. “Move with it, man.”

He staggers off it, almost tripping me up, and then he’s just lying there on the floor laughing.

“Dammit,” he whispers.

I reach down and help him up, slinging an arm over his shoulder, but I see the others laughing at him, too, so I have to act all rough and boyish, jostling him and telling him, “You’ll get there, man.”

“Thanks,” he chuckles.

A few minutes later, we’re all sitting up on the gazebo roof together, watching the community together. Carl asks about the people, and Ron goes over everybody like a tour guide. Denise, Barbra, Brian, Ofélia; he tells us a lot more names, but I don’t remember them. Just that at some point, he mentions Aaron and Eric, who we already know, and I blurt out, “They’re gay, right?” and Ron shrugs and says, “Yeah,” and I wait an awkward beat for him to say anything else, but he doesn’t, so I say, “Cool...” and we all move on.

Carl’s face is red and Nell is noticing. I know it, because she’s looking at me, too.

Finally, we all head back to our places — they make us promise to come to school tomorrow. The sun has gone and inside the main house, I read _August_ until my eyes ache. Noah’s teaching Carl to play cards.

At some point, I bump into Gabriel on his way out of the bathroom.

“Oh.” He jumps. “Hello.”

I step aside, then stop him.

“Err... Gabriel?”

He looks at me. “Is everything alright, Oliver?”

I shake my head, then shake it again.

He tries to smile.

“Carl told me.”

Gabriel looks puzzled suddenly, then blinks, and nods. “I... can’t say I’m surprised.”

I frown. “Why did you tell him all that? I mean, come on, man...” Never in my life have I called a grown man ‘man’ to his face before. “It ate away at him, for days.”

Gabriel looks like a scolded dog — I read somewhere that if you have to reprimand a dog, then you should do it while it’s making its mistake, and if you yell at it afterward, it doesn’t understand what it’s done wrong. I think of Gabriel like this, and it makes me feel sort of terrible, like it’s not worth trying because he just doesn’t know any better.

“Are you angry at me?” Gabriel asks.

“Yes,” I say, except I’m lying. “No...”

“So you’re just... angry,” he says.

“Yes,” I say.

“Why?”

“Because I hate that feeling,” I answer, shrivelling up like a prune. “That feeling of not belonging. Of... being ashamed of myself... Because I can’t carry my knife anymore and think this place doesn’t like me. But worse than that... I don’t like this place either. I don’t like Alexandria.”

 _Jesus,_ I think. _That was a lot of words..._

“For what it’s worth,” Gabriel tells me, after a tense beat, “when I said those things to Carl, I was in a very different mindset — and what he said back was very profound. I’ve been thinking a lot about it. And I’ve been meaning to tell him so, but... I suppose I’m a little late.”

“Yeah,” I agree, feeling sick, “you were.”

Gabriel nods, standing there on the landing until I decide to go back downstairs. The house feels too full, so I stand out on the decking. Daryl smokes. The smell makes me think of the cigarette Carl and I shared in Grady, and it calms me down.

“I win,” I hear him inside.

“Beginner's luck,” Noah says.

“Play again?”

“You’re on.”

At some point, Rick comes outside. He's wearing his constable uniform; smart, dark-blue shirt, tie, pants, coat and shoes. He pats me on the shoulder gently.

“We good?” he asks Daryl.

“Yeah,” Daryl grumbles. “You a cop now?”

“Trying it on for size.”

Carol comes out, too. She asks if the three of them can talk privately for a minute, so I go inside and sit in the alcove by the front door, reading _August_ absently.

“So, you were saying?” Carol asks outside. I only hear her because I’m so close to the cracked-open window above me.

“I think we can start sleeping in our own homes,” Rick answers. “Settle in.”

“We get comfortable here, we let our guard down... this place is gonna make us weak,” Carol warns.

“That’s what Carl said,” Rick says. “But it's not gonna happen. We won't get weak. That's not in us anymore. We'll make it work... If they can't make it, well... then we'll just take this place.”

He leaves the porch and goes to work, and I don’t feel worried or anxious. I just feel like the bad things aren’t over and that perhaps I don’t even mind that. I think there’s something wrong with me, like I’m comfortable in the chaos.

Carol comes back inside, alone. I look at her. She closes the door behind her — the blinds make fluttery clatter noises against the glass.

“Budge.”

I do, scooting aside so she can sit with me in the alcove. I’m still reading. I think she knows I heard, because she sighs.

“I get it,” I tell her. “And I trust you. You always know what you're doing.”

She looks worried, and brushes my hair out of my face, like she’s a mother who forgot I’m not her child, and I’m okay with this, just for a moment until she remembers and takes her hand back.

“You can cut it,” I say, “if you really want to.”

“You sure?”

I nod. “Not too much.”

“Not too much.”

She gets up to find the scissors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Throwback to when Carl fell on his ass in season 4.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	65. Season 5 ~ Forget, Part 1: The Welcome Party

Deanna’s throwing a welcome party later for us all. And Carl and I have to go to school, but for now, Rick’s set me a personal task of _not_ sitting on any floors for the whole day. I’m already struggling when he strolls into the dining room five minutes later and I’m sitting under the table, reading. Carl, too, has other things on his mind today.

“We could go outside the wall?” he whispers at one point to me. “Find a car, or an empty building.”

“I don’t know,” I answer. “Sounds kind of walker-bait-ish. Plus, I think your dad’ll have a fit if he finds out we went out there alone again.”

He fidgets. “Is the other house going to be empty?”

“Probably not, man.”

“What about in the orchard?”

“Dude,” I say, “we’re not doing it in the orchard.”

“It’s not a big deal,” he insists.

“It is,” I say. “For our first time, it is. Come on, man.”

He rolls his eyes and follows me into the hallway. I turn to him. He’s looking at my hair, pulling it; it’s a lot shorter now — my head feels lighter.

I sigh. “I just want it to be—”

“Special?” he guesses.

“ _Comfortable,_ ” I say. “I want to be comfortable. And, when it comes down to it, I really think you’ll want to be, too.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Guess so.”

I kiss him and say, “I win.”

He kisses me and says, “You win.”

“Het-hem?”

We jump. Maggie’s standing at the end of the hallway.

“Glenn and I are going to a meeting with Rick and Michonne and Deanna,” she tells us — I can hear her and Glenn chatting in the kitchen. “Won’t be gone long. Carl, your father told me to tell you to go and spend time with your friends. Both of you. And to remember to go...”

“To go to school,” we both recite along with her, and follow her into the kitchen, waving her and Glenn off as they leave.

“Wanna go to Ron’s?” Carl asks.

“Not really,” I say.

“Well... we could go upstairs, if it’s comfortable enough for you.”

“It is,” I admit, “but they’re coming back soon.”

Carl seems to agree with this, because he says, “Come on. Let’s go find the others, see if they’re heading to school soon. It’s almost one o’clock.”

We head to Ron’s place, but I can feel myself getting cold feet on the idea. I can hear videogame noises playing through Ron’s bedroom window, and I feel ill.

“Oliver?”

I look at him. “I’ll come by later,” I say, “before school. Promise.”

Carl watches me. “Why?”

I look around for an excuse, and find one, strolling across the street. “Carol,” I answer. “I’m... going to catch up with Carol.”

Carl squints at me, then nods. He’s knocking on the door while I cross the street to meet Carol on her way somewhere, and I don’t look back at Carl even though I can hear Ron inviting him inside.

Carol sees me coming, and stops on the sidewalk to wait for me.

“Hey.”

I wave. Today, Carol is wearing a floral sweater over a striped button-up. Her pants are dark blue and so big around her ankles that I can only see the toes of her shiny burgundy shoes.

“You going to school soon?” she asks me.

I shrug. “Got some time. Can I stick around with you until then?”

“I’m only headed to the pantry.”

“I can come,” I insist, only she doesn’t seem to want me to, except then she smiles — that same fake smile like the day we got here, and I frown. “Or... I don’t have to...”

“No, no, of course,” she says. “Let’s go.”

As we walk, Carol talks to me about mashed lima beans and coco powder and sweetener.

“Do you like the people?” I ask her.

“They’re so welcoming. Erin —she’ll be your teacher— told me to hit her up if I ever needed anything.”

“Hit her up?”

“It’s an expression.”

“Oh.”

She smiles — it seems real, this time. “You excited about the party later?” she asks, and I shake my head, except then I see the way she’s looking at me so I shrug instead. “Hey,” she says, brushing the back of my head, “we gotta try, right?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Very softly, she whispers, “That's it, sunshine.”

* * *

At Olivia’s, we’re let in and taken through the house to the garage, where the pantry is. I also realise that this is where Enid and Penelope live, because I see some of their things lying about, along with Bean rushing down to greet us. The girls aren’t in, probably at Ron’s.

Olivia and I are introduced properly.

“Your mom's told me a lot about you,” she says to me, putting Bean in another room.

“Oh, err...”

“It was all good things,” Carol adds.

I don’t know what to say.

The pantry is big, rows of shelves like a maze filled with every dry-stored thing imaginable. There’s a fridge, too, and even a one-hundred-and-twelve ounce can of pudding.

“So,” Carol goes on, presenting a piece of paper from her flip-pad. “Can I take what’s on this list? Anything you can spare.”

“Butter, sugar, flour, and...” Olivia frowns, like she’s misread something.

“Apple sauce,” Carol reads. “Substitute them for eggs. Oh, and if you have it, chocolate.”

My ears twitch so hard I have to re-sit my beanie hat. Then I am handed a small, green, plastic bag, which Carol begins filling with ingredients.

“Do you guys really, uh... substitute apple sauce for eggs?”

Carol grins.

“That could change my life,” Olivia adds.

Carol’s hands are on my shoulders, her chin stretched to look over my head — I think I’ve had a growth spurt in four days. This morning I looked in the mirror and I’d turned into a titan. Granted, a rather lanky titan, but I’m taller than Carl now. I haven’t been taller than him since the prison.

“If you could keep that between us,” Carol says. “It's sorta the secret to these cookies.”

“Are you serious?” Olivia laughs.

“I am,” Carol sings. “Girl's got only so many secrets.”

_And you, Carol Peletier, just so happen to have a whole suitcase full._

“They'll die with me,” Olivia promises. “Uh... the chocolate's kind of a trick.”

I hold back the, “ _Nooo!_ ”

“Do you actually have it?” Carol asks.

“I can only ration you a quarter bar.”

“I'll make it work,” Carol says.

Just then, two men come in through the garage. One’s Tobin, who works in construction with Abraham — I don’t know the other man, but he must work on construction, too, because they’re both wearing similar thick, protective clothing; work gloves sticking out of their back pockets. “Hey, Olivia.”

Carol steps into me, gently setting us aside to let Tobin and his colleague pass. She smiles politely to them.

“We're gonna need to make a withdrawal,” Tobin says.

“Late start?” Olivia asks.

“Well, boss lady wants me to check that strut on the East wall before the party.”

“Head on back.” They go into the house, open some double doors, and disappear into what I realise is the armoury. “Carol, Oliver. Grab what you need. Chocolate's in the hall freezer.”

“Okay,” Carol mumbles, watching them in the armoury from the garage — I go ahead and grab a quarter bar of chocolate from the freezer for her. It’s cold and wrapped in foil and my taste buds start stinging just thinking about it. I drop it in the plastic bag. Above the freezer on the wall is a black board and white chalk:

FISH 10  
DUCK 11  
DEER 6  
RABBIT 5  
CHOCOLATE 8

I rub out the eight with my thumb and draw seven instead. Then, thinking we’re done here, I turn to leave but Carol’s still watching the others, wandering out into the hallway to talk to them.

“You afraid o' guns, ma'am?” Tobin asks when he notices her.

Carol tilts her head. “No,” she confesses. “I had a handgun. And I... carried a rifle when we were on the outside. But, I'm not an expert... Not with those at least.”

As not to blow her façade, I look around the armoury. Daryl’s crossbow is mounted on the wall. It makes me think of Terminus. There’s a box labelled _‘HANDGUNS’_ and I know mine’s inside.

“What 'bout you, kid?” Tobin asks, shows off some things with his own rifle, like he’s trying to be impressive. “You afraid of guns?”

Even though I’m a titan now, Tobin is Godzilla. He towers over me with a floppy grin and shoulders broad enough to barrel through herds. I tell myself he’s just as clueless as the rest of them. A Great Dane. A giant harmless lap dog. Not in my lap, mind you.

I don’t speak to him.

“Oliver knows his guns a lot better than I do,” Carol lies. “He's tried his best to teach me, but... I guess I just can't get a handle on the kick back — leaves me with bruises every time.”

If I were drinking something, I would’ve spit it.

“Well...” Tobin grins, his head dipped se he’s looking up to her, even though he’s a planet and she’s the incoming meteor — he doesn’t know she’ll leave a crater. “My name’s Tobin. And, whenever you want, I'd be happy to teach you. Better to be safe than sorry.”

“That'd be nice. Thanks, Tobin.”

I realise they’re flirting. Carol smiles at him until he turns away, and then she looks at me, gives me a serious look, and my head spins.

“Thank you, Olivia,” Tobin says.

We’re shown out.

I wait for Carol and I to be alone before saying anything.

“So, Mom...”

“Don’t do that,” she says.

“You started it,” I say back.

“No,” she says, “she assumed it.”

“Why don't you tell them the truth?”

“Why were you so rude to him?”

I don’t say anything because I think she knows. Much like I know why she is lying.

“You're making yourself invisible,” I tell her.

“It’s what I told Rick.”

I sigh.

She sighs, too. “Go to school, Oliver.”

* * *

I do, and it’s boring. I liked it when Enid chose to sit next to me though. And I smiled at her for giving me a spare pencil, even though she didn’t smile back. The rest of school is fine. Like Carol said, Erin is friendly and helpful, and has a nice, soft-spoken voice. She keeps us occupied with forty-five minute classes — today: Math, History, Geography, and then, finally, English.

Carl struggles. He keeps peeking at mine or Mikey's notes. I can’t help but be a smug asshole, writing in my margins: _Maybe you should have gone to storytime..._ and he writes back: _BITE MY ASS_.

Erin says, “Can I get an example of a metaphor, anybody?”

Mikey, whose head is rested on his desk, puts a hand up. “Home is like a prison.”

Carl smiles at this. I guess for him, it’s not a metaphor at all.

We’re told to come up with a line of poetry by ourselves, that it doesn’t have to rhyme or anything, that it just needs to mean something to us. Carl’s trying to look at my notes for help, but I haven’t anything for him, so I just write: _‘I’ll be the thunder and you can be the lightning; never one without the other.’_

He actually blushes.

Finally, Erin asks us to read our examples out.

Carl’s asked to first, and says, “I couldn’t think of one...”

“Well, you know, if you’re ever confused, you can ask me anytime.”

“Thanks. I will next time.”

She moves on to Mikey’s metaphor. “She is the apple of my eye.”

“Lovely. But come up with something a bit more original, next time. Perhaps expand on something about home.”

Ron’s poem is, “It’s hard to leave the nest when it will fall apart on its own.”

Penelope’s: “You can’t have writer’s block is you aren’t writing. You just have block. I have block. I’d like a plunger.”

“Good... Strange, but good.”

Enid doesn’t say a word.

“Well, in your own time, I guess,” Erin tells her, and moves on. “Oliver?”

“Oh, err...” I had been trying to come up with something different, but failed. I mumble that I don’t want to read it aloud.

“You what?”

I mumble it again.

“Sorry, sweetie,” Erin says, “but you have to speak up.”

“I don’t want to read it aloud,” I repeat.

“Oh,” she says. “That’s okay. I can read it, this time.”

I shake my head but she’s already picking it up and reading it out. She calls me ‘a prodigy’ and I want to die.

“It’s so romantic, Oliver. You should be so proud of yourself.”

“Who’s it for?” someone else asks.

I can see Carl’s face shining from across the room.

“Nobody,” I say, sweating.

* * *

After school, I’m exhausted, but I still stand around for a while with the others before heading back. They talk about the party tonight, except Enid, who is refusing to attend. I would too if Carl hadn’t already made me promise to go.

Finally, we leave. Mikey, Enid and Penelope head one way and Ron, Carl and I head another, all of us exchanging ‘see you later’s except Enid, who just says, “Bye.” She and Penelope are holding hands as they go, which is funny because they seem to act like more of a couple than Enid and Ron do, but I guess holding hands doesn’t have to be a couple thing — even if I don’t test this theory out with Carl... or Ron, for that matter.

On our street, Ron breaks off to his house and Carl and I keep walking, only holding hands once we know nobody is around.

“I guess I was wrong,” Carl says.

“About what?”

“Enid’s not mean,” he answers. “She’s just...”

“Elusive,” I say.

Carl laughs. “I don’t know what that means but it sounds nice, so... yeah.”

We go inside the house.

“So, Enid and Penelope, do you think...” He laughs at the way I look at him. “What? It's just a question.”

“I'm pretty sure they're just friends,” I say.

* * *

Alexandria is making us weird. Michonne put her katana on the wall above the inglenook in the first house, and Carol, Noah, Tara, Abraham and Rosita are moving into the second house.

Cookies are baking, and at some point, Carol comes over to check on them. She’s dressed in black and white; a lace cardigan over a sleeveless blouse — fill possum.

She comes in as I’m finishing Carl’s homework. I don’t mind doing it for him. I like it, really. We’re told to wash and get dressed into something nice, so we do that. Carl wears a brown button-up and a grey T-shirt. His shoes match. Still no hat though. I wear a dark-green v-neck — I was given odd socks on accident, so I spend a few minutes scouring the house for a matching pair.

“Have you ever been to a party?” Carl asks.

“Once.”

“What was it like?”

“Weird,” I answer, finding my book. “Pat made me go, said I could have fifteen dollars if I went with him.”

“What?”

“Mom wouldn't let him go. He used me to convince her that it would just be a sleepover. But it wasn't.”

Carl snickers.

“Nice brownies though,” I add. “And there was a cat, Cat — the cat’s name was Cat, I mean. Cat was, like, the coolest cat ever.”

“That's a lot of cats.”

I laugh. “Never even got the money.”

I wait a beat.

“We should get drunk.”

Carl grimaces. “I don’t like alcohol.”

“You’ve had some?”

“Once, at the CDC — it was disgusting.”

I snicker. “Well, I haven’t, not including the stuff I spat out on the road, so... I’m going to try again. Maybe it’ll make the whole thing more bearable.”

“You really don’t want to come, do you?”

I shrug.

Carl sighs. “Here. Wear it tonight.” He hands me his hat. “Might make you feel better. Always does for me.”

“Thanks, man.”

* * *

Later, we arrive to Deanna’s house. It’s surreal how almost the whole community can fit inside. There are people everywhere, and there are nice lights on and music playing form somewhere. On the dining room table is about a million blue and green drinking cups and some empty wine glasses and about a million and one unopened beer bottles. Abraham’s going to think his birthday.

“Oh, my!” Deanna spots us from across the hallway and breaks away from Mr. and Mrs. Miller and Reg, her husband. “Welcome!”

She shows Carol where to set her tray of cookies. A woman, Mrs. Neudermyer, passes through the crowded room, talking to a friend about a pasta-maker.

“Thank you for coming,” Deanna tells Rick, holding Judith’s hand. “You know, I didn't get a chance to interview this one. I envy her.”

“Why?” Rick asks.

“She'll get to see what this place will become.”

Carl smiles at them, then turns to me. “Let’s go find the others.”

Mikey and Penelope are in the dining room. Mikey’s wearing a shirt and tie. Penelope’s wearing a dress and cardigan, and a small headband.

“No Enid?” Carl asks.

“No Enid,” she answers. “You guys look nice.”

“You, too,” Carl says. “I like the dress.”

She smiles.

“Oh,” Carl says, fishing into his pocket. “I got us something...” He pulls out his deck of cards. “You play?”

“Sure.”

* * *

 

Ron and his family arrive not long later. At some point, Ron tried to hijack the stereo:—“Quit with this piano garb. I want rock...” except half-way through a song about monsters, he gets caught by his dad and is shouted at. Ron gives up and plays cards instead, looking pretty sorry for himself. By that point, I’d managed to sneak a few bottles of beer, but I don’t feel anything yet, and I’m too nervous to take anymore for myself, so I end up pretending to help clean up so I can finish off the last of other people’s cups. Some of it tastes sweet, and others are like inhaling gasoline. And then, at some point later, I find myself sitting outside on the porch alone.

I’m wearing Penelope’s cardigan. Not sure when I put it on or was given it, but not minding. It’s warm against the evening breeze. It’s so quiet out here. The sunset makes the community glow gold. I’m sitting at the deck edge, swinging my legs and sticking my arms through the banister, reading — nothing but Tristan and Grace exist. I live in them. Holding onto life after the car crash, sharing the past as not to die because of it.

_‘He could not tell her of the fear. The perfect fear. That was his alone.’_

Suddenly, I notice something about this book. There’s a page folded at the back... I open it carefully. There’s a note for me.

_'Dear, Oliver._

_Thought you might like this one. It’s all about remembering. Maybe once you’re done, you’ll let me try it after you._

_Ps. How was Tom and Huck?_

_— Ty'_

For a while, I sit there holding the book to my chest. Someone comes outside.

“Nice hat,” Michonne says.

I wipe my face quickly. “It’s Carl’s.”

“No kidding.” She asks what I’m doing out here and I wave my book, and then she doesn’t say much for a while. Just eats her party food. There’s a plastic sword on her plate, and she examines it.

“You packing different steel nowadays?” Abraham asks when he comes outside, too, a bottle of beer in hand.

Michonne chuckles, then, very seriously, whispers, “Yeah...”

He smiles. “Live by it, you die by it, and eat potato puffs by it. Pray to God you don't have to use it again. Pray to God you don't get used to not using it again.” He laughs at himself. “It's on your back... even when it's off your back. Hm.”

She frowns. “How much have you had to drink?”

They both laugh.

“I am a large man. And I have had many beers to make up for that.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And you know what?” he adds. “By that brave act... I have come to realize that things have worked out pretty damn well for me. How about you? What have you done?”

“I put on this dress,” she says.

“Try again,” he says, and goes back inside.

He’d left his drink, so I take it.

Michonne tuts. “Are you... Are you drunk, too?”

“No,” I lie.

She takes the bottle from me and laughs. “That’s enough for you. Go inside, please.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I go in.

“I win,” Mikey says.

“No, it was a tie, man!” Carl argues. “You guys saw it, right?” Ron is chewing a twizzler and Penelope laughs. Carl snatches Mikey’s cards, then notices me coming in. “Oliver, hey. Where’ve you been?”

“Outside. Reading.”

“You... okay?”

“Yes.”

“You’re drunk.”

“I am drunk.”

“Hey, Sam!” Ron yells. “Give Oliver a stamp, too.”

“Sam, wait — don't run,” Jessie calls out.

He’s got a small, circular container and tells me to hold out the back of my hand. Then, carefully, Sam presses the cartridge there. It leaves a large red A and my head swims.

“A, for Alexandria,” Sam says.

 “Oliver?” someone asks me.

I suddenly don’t feel well and I think I’m crying.

“Is he okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Just drunk,” Carl says, and I’m mumbling things to him about cannibals and termites and he takes me away across the room. “We’ll be back in a minute, guys.”

“I’m good, man, I’m good,” I insist, struggling to walk alone.

Deanna passes.

“Oh, ma'am?”

She stops and smiles at us. “Yes, Carl. How can I help you?”

“Where's your bathroom?”

She must gesture towards the staircase because that’s where we go — upstairs, where it is quiet and empty. Carl sits with me in the bathroom and we talk for a while but I don’t remember what about. I know I cry a lot. And then I stop and I feel better and more sober again. I don’t know how much time has passed. It’s dark outside and I need to pee, so Carl leaves me to it.

Peeing is difficult. The edge of Carl's hat keeps getting in the way of my eyes. I have to put my head back and look down my nose to I make absolutely sure that I don't miss. I get done and wash my hands, then drink water from the tap. That’s what you do, right? When you want to get sober. You drink water, not beer.

Something moves through the window outside. I watch the street, see Carol walking in the shadows until I can't see her anymore, but I can see who is following her now. Sam. I get a bad feeling. I don't like it at all. Quickly, I rush out of the bathroom, totally incognito, sober-Oliver, strolling down the staircase and out of the house without more than an absent-minded glance in my direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did anyone else see in this episode that Judith got her cups back?!
> 
> Happy reading.


	66. Season 5 ~ Forget, Part 2: The Bogeyman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A centred bit at the end in Carl’s head, but the rest is Oliver’s.

I follow them to the armoury. Carol sneaks in through the window and Sam is about to go in after her, but I grab him and pull him across the street. He doesn’t fight or struggle much.

“Dude, what are you doing?” I hiss.

“I went after your mom, to ask if she'd make me cookies.” He puts a hand to his mouth and whispers, “I think she's stealing.”

My mouth’s dry. Gut twisting.

“Look, you want cookies, man?” I ask. “I can ask her to make more, if you want. You can have a whole batch to yourself.”

He nods. “Yes, please.”

“Cool,” I say, dry. “But, you gotta promise you won't tell anyone that Carol went in there.”

“But... I'd have to tell my mom. I mean, I tell my mom everything.”

“No. You won’t tell anyone. Especially not your mom.” I step closer. Sam bumps into the tree behind him. “If you do. Bad things will happen.”

“W...what kind of bad things?” he asks.

“Bad things,” I answer. “Bad things that only happen to boys who don’t keep secrets. So you won’t tell. If you tell, one day you'll wake up someplace you’ve never been before. You won't be tucked up warm in your comforter.”

“Where will I be?”

“Outside Alexandria,” I whisper. “Far away. And you won’t know which way is home. You'll be tied to a tree, strung up by your hands. And you'll scream and scream. And nobody will come to save you... But something will hear you. The monsters. They'll come for you. The monsters out there. And you won't be able to run.”

I swallow. Have to. Sam is trembling.

“They will find you and eat you up all while you're still alive,” I tell him. “All while you can still feel it. All while you watch them rip you up. And then, after... nobody will ever know what happened to you. You'll just be one of them... and you’ll never come home again.”

I have to stop now or I’ll keel over.

“Or, you can promise not to ever tell anyone what you saw tonight,” I say, forcing a smile. “And then nothing bad will happen to you. Nothing bad happens to boys who keep secrets. And, you'll get cookies. Lots of cookies.”

Sam nods and nods.

“Go back to the party, man.”

* * *

Sometime later, I’m throwing up across somebody’s driveway. I collapse on the grass, holding on to the curb tightly so I won’t float away when gravity forgets about me. I’ve been crying. I still am — my breath is all shallow and shaky and blubbery. My head feels empty and cold. Carl’s hat is on my chest. I put it over my face and black-out the streaky stars. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I think back to when I was a kid — Patrick told me the bogeyman would get me if I ratted on him about anything. I couldn't sleep with my arms or legs out of the covers for years, and I still get uncomfortable doing it sometimes.

I think I just became Sam’s bogeyman.

“Carl?” I wind myself sitting up. Carol is standing across the street, a small sack behind her back. “Oh. Oliver...” She frowns. “What're you doing here?”

I scowl at her.

“Come on, let’s go back to the party...”

I shake my head.

She stares at me. “You saw...”

I keep shaking my head. “Sam...”

Her expression drops. “We have to find him. I need to explain—”

“No!” My voice is venom. “I already did. I just scared the living shit out of him just to make sure he wouldn't tell. Shit, what we’re you thinking? No. I know. _I know!_ ”

She waits for me to calm down but when I don’t, she says, “Thank you, for doing that for me.”

Still shaking my head at the ground, pacing. “You don’t have to leave me again. You’re going to leave me again. I don’t want you to leave me again. I know why.” I’m panting. “I know I’m messed up, too. I know there’s something wrong with me.”

“No, that’s not—”

“But I can play possum, too!” I yell, and all of a sudden I’m hurting so badly that all I want is for her to hurt just as badly — I’ve never wanted someone to hurt like me before.

“I can tell you what I was doing,” she whispers, “it doesn’t have to be a secret from you.”

“I don't want to know!”

She steps back, shoulders up high. “Why are you so angry?”

“We're supposed to be living here,” I answer. “We're supposed to be making this work. Settling. Not... this.” I put my hands through my fringe. “The window. It was today, wasn't it, that's why you didn't want me to go with you? I made it harder for you? But you worked around me, right? You unlocked the window?”

I trip over a curb. Carol helps me stand.

“You’re drunk,” she complains.

“And you’re too unhappy to stay here.”

“That's not true. Oliver...”

“And you're threatening little kids.”

“Oliver...” She’s saying my name like she's losing control of it, like it’s something feral that’s escaped its enclosure. “Oliver, stop...”

“And you’re too quiet,” I go on. “And afraid... of everything. You saw them die. You saw them all... die.” She tries to grab me but I fight her. “No. _No!_ Get off me! Get the fuck off me! You liar! You fucking liar!”

“Stop it!” she gasps, and slaps me across the face.

I reel back and clutch my cheek. She’s looking at her hand like it doesn’t belong to her, and then she looks at me, like she’s waiting for me to retaliate. I don’t. I just fall into her arms and hold her.

I don’t remember the walk back to the main house, but we’re there now. My eyes are swollen and sore from crying. I’m slouched on the couch and Carol is putting something smooth and hot in my hands. Steam fills my nostrils and I grimace down at a dark-brown potion.

“It'll help you wake up in the morning,” Carol tells me.

“Smells bad.”

“It’s coffee.”

“...bad.”

“Drink, Oliver.”

I do. Then I’m upstairs, curled up in bed and I tell her, “Whatever it was tonight, I won’t tell either. I trust you. You always know what you're doing.”

“Oliver,” she says, “you can't believe that, not all the time. You're not a child anymore. I'm not gonna tell you some story to make you feel better. It can't work like that anymore.”

“Okay.”

She sighs. “I mean it. You can't just agree with everything I say. I could be wrong. I _am_ wrong, sometimes. You can't just go along with it just 'cause you trust me.”

I touch her forehead, whisper, “My cheek still hurts.”

Her eyebrows arch. “I'm sorry... I shouldn’t have done that.”

“You’re scared of this place,” I tell her. “Of... letting people get too close. I get it. And I don't want you to feel bad. You didn't want to be mean. But sometimes you have to... but just sometimes.”

* * *

 

“What’s your favourite meal, honey?”

“Huh?”

“Your favourite meal. I'd love to cook it for you sometime. I'm doing it for all the new arrivals.”

“Oh. Um. Thanks. Well, I like corn.”

“Great. What about the other boy? Oliver, I think? I haven’t seen him.”

“Me neither...”

“Ah, I'll find him eventually. Have a good night, Carl.”

...

“It’s been a long time since I held a baby.”

“She and Carl... They’re why I’m still here, and I get what you’ve been telling me.”

“Here isn’t that bad.”

“Do you wanna take her?”

“Yeah. Thanks, Jessie...”

...

“Nell leave, too.”

“No. She’s talking to that new guy, Noah.”

“Oh...”

“Hey, guys? I... think I’m gonna go.”

“Oh, come on, Carl. It’s still early.”

“I know, it’s just...”

“Oliver?”

“No... so what if it is?”

“Nothing, man. Have a good night.”

“Okay. Could you let my dad know, if he asks for me?”

“Sure.”

“Sure, man.”

“Thanks, guys. Later?”

I knew that already so I just nod.

...

“Hey, Carl.”

“Hey... you left the party.”

“So did you.”

“Have you seen—”

“Upstairs. Sleeping here tonight. I'll tell your dad.”

“Why wouldn't he sleep here tonight anyway?”

“It's the new sleeping arrangements. Half of us here and half of us next door. We’re next door. You’re here with your dad and sister. And Michonne, Maggie and Glenn. Daryl, too, or Sasha. It’s not decided yet. Especially if Gabriel starts staying at his church like he wants to — what?”

“We’re not living together?”

“Next door. Not next county. You'll still see each other every day.”

“Yeah... guess.”

“Night, Carl.”

“Night.”

...

“Just me. Go back to sleep.”

“I wasn’t sleeping. I was practicing Clair De Lune — hmm, hm, do do do, do, hm hm hm hm, hmm, do, do do do...”

“You’re so drunk, man.”

“Hm. Why’d you come back?”

“...I saw Dad kiss Jessie's cheek tonight.”

“Oh.”

“Why’d you come back?”

“I... shouldn’t talk about it like this. I’ll explain tomorrow.”

“...Okay.”

“Carl?”

“Yeah, man.”

“Nothing... I just wanted to make sure you were there.”

...

“Rick...”

“Carol, have the boys come through here?”

“They're asleep, upstairs.”

“Okay... Did you do it?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. We'll stash them tomorrow.”

“Not so loud. They're only upstairs... Coffee?”

“I'm okay, thanks.”

“Carl came by a while after we got in. Oliver followed me. Didn't see what I was doing, but... he knows.”

“Guess you're not so invisible to him, huh?”

“He's pretty good at being invisible, too... He trusts me. And you. Honestly, he probably won't even remember by tomorrow.”

“Why?”

“Got his hands on some drinks.”

“Wow. Carl, too? That why he came back?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Guess it's not somethin' we can avoid. They're teenagers. They're gonna do stupid stuff. At least they're here instead of out there... You know? I caught them walking around outside the wall yesterday. We took down some walkers together.”

“You did?”

“Hmm.”

“And that's okay with you?”

“Me and Lori weren't much older when we met... Good thing here is that they can’t get pregnant.”

“That what happened to you?”

“Hmm... Best thing we ever did.”

“They’re good kids. Good men.”

“They know they’re sleeping apart?”

“Told Carl. Wasn’t very happy. But... he's not a child. Didn't make a fuss. And they'll get used to it.”

“They're so... attached. They can't be so invested in each other. I mean, how long will it last?”

“If they break up, so be it. It happens.”

“I'm not talkin’ about that.”

“Well... that happens, too.”

“Carl... I need him to stay strong, if he lost him.”

“Let them be, Rick.”

“Alright. Still... they're gettin’ used to sleepin' apart.”

“Tomorrow. Leave them for tonight. Oliver’s earned it. Carl, too.”

“Alright... Goodnight. I work early. Make sure they don’t miss school.”

“Okay. Night.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	67. Season 5 ~ Forget, Part 3: Sempiternal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Romantic themes involving monors but it's pg-13 like always chill down.

I wake up the next morning expecting a hangover, or at least a headache, but I’m fine; possibly reeking of vomit, but otherwise alright — I get up and shower before anybody else, except Carol, who seems to be waiting for me in the kitchen with a cup of coffee in hand. She hands me some so I drink. It’s gross, but... okay.

“Got a little carried away last night, huh?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I'm sorry... I’m... sorry. I didn't mean what I said.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Yeah,” I confess. “But I didn't mean it at you.”

“I know.”

“Do you think Sam's going to be afraid of me?”

“I do,” she says. “But I don’t think he’ll tell. If he does, I'll vouch for you. And... I wanted to tell you this: It wasn't your fault. What happened last night, all the other stuff. It wasn’t on you. You gotta know that.”

“Can I stay here today?”

“No. You'll look more suspicious.”

“What if I have to face him? What if he told Ron?” I think that if I’m a titan, Ron is a werewolf; when the full moon shines, his true form shows... or at least this is what I dreamed last night morning. He mauled me. Tore me in a million.

“Will you tell Carl what happened?”

I nod.

“Good,” she says. “It'll make you both feel better. Go to school. Hang out with your friends. Walk Bean or something.” Her instructions are like being lowered into a pit of walkers and getting told to relax, but I nod anyway — tying the rope myself.

“Okay.”

She packs up her things. “I have to go. I'll be back later. Probably a lot later. Mrs. Neudermyer wants to talk to me about that—”

“Pasta maker,” we say at the same time.

* * *

 

After school, I hang out at Ron's with the others. Even Enid sticks around for a while. Ron, Mikey, Nell and Carl play a platform videogame together, yelling at each other about different tactics. I sit on the bed, shoulder to shoulder with Enid, reading _August_. She’s reading over my shoulder, tapping empty glass rim against her bottom row of teeth.

_Tink. Tink. Tink..._

I go and refill it. She’d been drinking water before but I remember that she likes apple juice, so I get her some of that instead, along with some drinks for the others. Sam catches me while I’m downstairs.

“I wanted to ask you,” he’s saying, pointing, “why did you cry about the stamp?”

“Huh?”

“Last night.”

“I didn’t,” I lie. In truth, I spent half my shower trying to rub it off my skin. I swear, the ink is supernatural — not coming off for anything. “What do you want, Sam?”

“I... live here.”

I deflate.

“I didn't tell,” Sam explains. “I swear to God.”

“Thanks... man.”

He nods and steps aside. “See you later.”

“See you, man.”

When I get upstairs, Mikey and Penelope are arguing over the most effective way to melt a CD to blow bubbles with the plastic — it sounds like fire hazard, but apparently Mikey isn’t afraid of flames.

Nell leaves at some point to hang out with Noah. When she’s gone, Ron teases Mikey over it and I can see the green gew oozing from him. He leaves not long after that, too, and tells us we can come over after supper for the CD trick if we want.

Since it’s just me, Carl, Enid and Ron now, and nobody but Ron wants to keep playing videogames, Ron switches to a western, single game about a cowboy taking down an old crew of bandits to get his family back. I keep criticizing his horses, so Ron keeps shooting them in the head — I laugh even though I’m slightly disturbed.

At some point, Ron asks, “Guys? Can I tell you something?”

Carl and I look at him.

Ron inhales, galloping through Cholla Springs. “Enid and I were talking, and we made a bet. Either, you’re both in love with each other and you just don’t know it yet, or... you’re already boyfriends.”

“What?” Carl mumbles, and I bust up laughing like a maniac.

“Laugh now,” Ron adds, “but you’ll see... one day.”

Carl snorts, like he can’t believe this — like it’s the best thing he’s ever heard. “Guess we’re just too immature.”

Ron shrugs like he already knows this. “We’ve already discussed it with the others,” he explains, “and they all think it makes a lot of sense, too.”

Carl smiles, gnawing his knuckle, and then he looks at me. I can feel how hot my face is. He asks me, “Think we should be boyfriends?”

Ron twists around, caught off guard — he rides a carriage off a cliff. “Wait, you’re serious?”

“Yeah,” Carl says casually, “I am.”

Ron looks at Enid and she says, “They’re messing with you. They’re already dating.”

“Really?” Ron frowns. He looks at us all very carefully. “You’re already...”

“Yeah,” Carl says.

“Crap,” Ron says, “I lost.”

Enid grins.

Carl snorts loudly.

“This whole time?” Ron asks.

We both nod.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” he asks.

“Well, we would have,” Carl admits. “At some point.”

Ron turns back to his game. “Well, you can tell the others now, too... at some point.”

* * *

 

Later, Carl and I hold hands the whole walk back to the house. We stick around for most of the day, until the evening, when we get read to head out for Mikey’s.

“Oliver?”

I look at him across our bedroom.

“Can we... hang out... alone, for a while?”

“Now?” I ask.

“Now,” he says.

“What about Mikey’s?” I ask.

“Well, he didn’t say we had to go,” Carl says. “And we can go later. I just... miss hanging out alone with you.”

I smile and kiss him.

“Here?” I ask. “Or somewhere else?”

“Somewhere else,” he says. We leave the house. Carl looks around, then crosses the street. “The empty house. Maybe it has a DVD player and we can watch a movie.”

“I hope it has Lord of the Rings.”

We check nobody sees us go, then sneak around onto the back porch. It’s the smallest house on our street — I heard its last owner died on a run last month. Carl peeks through the window.

“See anything?” I ask.

He squints. “Just a bunch of bugs.”

“What?” I look, too — there’s an insect collection covering a wall inside. Beetles and butterflies and dragonflies and moths; all dead, every colour and shape from beautiful to totally ugly. “Jesus...”

“Keys.”

We’ve been doing our research: Enid told me that all the empty houses have spare keys somewhere outside, so we get looking, until finally I notice the old boot neglected under the step. I shake it up-side down until the set of small, silver keys drop out into my palm, along with a fat black spider. I shriek and shake it off.

Carl laughs and grabs the keys. He tries all five until we’re inside. I lock the door behind us. It’s dim, with the sunset glowing in through the curtains. It’s nice in here, too. There are less bugs than we thought — a few small sculptures, but the rest are on the wall. The house is neat and dusty. Failing to find a TV downstairs, we go upstairs together.

I go to the window and look at our houses.

“What is it?” Carl whispers.

I point. He looks over my shoulder. “There, between the houses, the wall?”

“Yeah.”

“Your dad was there, this morning. I saw him. He was listening to something on the outside.”

“Why?”

“I don't know.”

Just then, Daryl leaves the first house and we both duck out of sight, bumping into each other. I laugh at him.

“Kinda déjà vu, of the night at Grady?” Carl asks.

“No cigarettes left.”

Carl smiles. “That’s okay.”

“Why are we whispering?” I ask.

He shakes his head and kisses me. I begin to realise we aren’t going to find a DVD player or a TV in this house, but I’m okay with it — okay with it because there’s a bedroom and a bed with a rug and a big painting of a snail shell on the wall; luckily it is the only insect up here.

I’m lying on the bed and he’s sitting on my chest, kissing me, taking off his clothes. I take off mine, too, tripping up over my jeans and getting stuck in my shirt. I leave my socks on and he laughs at me for it, and then we’re kissing again, and he asks me if I’m sure and I say, “Totally...” and I say it a lot more: “Totally. Totally, man...” sure that every last butterfly downstairs is alive and bursting out of my own chest up here, but in a really good way, and then, all of a sudden, I’m experiencing something so good that I’m sure no living thing in the world has ever felt it before. I don’t exist for a while. Neither of us do. We’re just thoughts and feelings and movements and whispers. We are a whole person. We are sempiternal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	68. Season 5 ~ Romeo, Romeo

For the next few days, Carl and I spend a lot of time in the empty house together. Our friends are under the impression that we’re with our family, and our family are under the impression that we’re with our friends. In the time we aren’t at the empty house, we tell Nell and Mikey about us, and it’s fine.

Today, Carol tells me about the new sleeping plan.

“Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“You haven’t been here,” she says. “This is the first I’ve seen you in days.”

I deflate a little. “Sorry.”

“You,” she points at me, “sleep here tonight.”

“Fine,” I moan, and then there’s a knock at the door. “Oh. That’s the others. I invited them around so that they could take all their stuff from the attic room.”

“That’s what all that stuff is,” she says.

I go to the door and let them all spill in. It doesn’t take long to get everything into Ron’s house, the rest Mikey or Enid put into plastic bags to take home. Carl comes over after he’s done babysitting Judith, and Penelope comes over not long after that with Bean — he’s left outside the house because Pete is home.

Ron is standing on the dining room table.

“Err... what are you doing?”

“So, I saw this painting in that book Carl gave me.”

Carl perks up. “You liked it?”

“Yeah. I like that Michael guy.”

“Angelo,” I correct. “It’s Michelangelo.”

“Great,” Ron says, and I laugh because Carl looks offended — I’m also wrestling Mikey into a headlock because he keeps trying to steal my beanie. Ron watches this happen for a second, then looks at Carl and asks, “That one painting he did?”

“Well... he did a lot of paintings,” Carl says — he won’t say so, but he secretly worships Michelangelo like Judith worships plastic cups. “There’s... The Entombment. Domi Tondo. The Deluge. But... he’s better known for his sculptures, in stone, like the Bearded Slave and David, and the Battle of the Centaurs. Oh, or the Crouching Boy. I love that one, it reminds me of...” He glances at me. “Erm... I mean, nothing.”

I laugh.

“Right...” Ron says. “But I think this one was called the Creation of Adam. I wanna recreate it. Nell, take the photo?”

“Why?”

“I’m bored,” he says, lying down on the table top and pushing the end chair away. “Carl, lie here, under me on the floor, then reach up.”

He does as told. “I’m not taking my clothes off.”

Ron throws a coaster at his head — while they reach for each other, the rest of us, Enid not included, are grinning our asses off. Penelope is going to take photo, but then Mr. Anderson is standing at the kitchen door.

“What’s going on in here?”

Ron stumbles off the table and Carl shuffles over to catch him. They stand up, knocking over a chair. The rest of us have twisted around. Pete stares at all of us, a beer in hand. I wonder if he might laugh, but he doesn’t.

“Go to school,” he tells us, in a low, grainy voice.

We all file out of the house.

“Ron,” Pete says, “stay behind.”

“Dad?”

“You’re staying.”

Ron stares at him, then at his beer, then nods. Quickly, and with a smile, he turns to the rest of us. “Uh, guys... I’ll see you later.” Mikey, Enid and Penelope are watching him like they’re having a full conversation in their heads, like a telepathic chat room that Carl and I aren’t a part of. Then, in the end, we leave. There’s shouting. Carl and I don’t ask questions, even when we hear the beer bottle smash as we cross the street.

* * *

 

Ron misses school. We find him on our walk home, sitting outside his house tearing apart daises. He doesn’t say anything. Just stands up and hands Mikey a basketball. There is a hoop at the end of the street, and we play. Even Enid joins in. Ron can’t lift his arm, but he doesn’t say why.

Later, I trust myself enough to help Carol cook casserole in the main house. I get a welt on my forearm but the food tastes good, which makes up for it. After we’re done eating, Carol, Rosita, Abraham, Tara, Noah and Eugene go next door — Daryl’s at Aaron and Eric’s organising a scouting trip.

I unpack my things into a room shared with Noah.

Before bed, I say goodnight to Carol downstairs. She asks me if Sam’s afraid of me now and I say, “No. Weird, huh?”

“Yeah. It is.”

“Maybe I'm just not very scary.”

“Oh, no, you're terrifying, like a human Scar.”

“From _Lion King_?”

She nods.

“Great,” I say. “I look like a cartoon lion. That's exactly the look I was going for.”

“I thought Scar was great.”

My eyes roll.

“Go to bed, Oliver.”

I make it half way up the stairs before I ask her to come over. She stands close, banister between us. “I liked cooking with you,” I say. “Made me think of my brother. But... I wasn’t sad this time.”

“I’m glad,” she says.

“I think I’ll still get sad though,” I say.

“Yes,” she says. “You will.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, I do.”

I nod. “I... I can't imagine ever being as strong as you.”

She watches me. “Go to bed, Oliver.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

There’s this moment then — she’s walked away but I’m still kneeling on against the banister. I can see her standing at the kitchen island and she knows I’m still here, too, but we can’t see each other. Then, so quiet I almost miss it, I swear I hear her whisper that she loves me, and quiet enough she probably won’t hear it, I whisper it back to her.

* * *

 

Sleeping in a bed is great and all, and I’ll never miss sleeping in the dirt, or in a cell, or on the floor — but it’s hard to enjoy this when I’ve gotten so used to sleeping within foot-smelling distance of another person for the past several months. I think I’m afraid of sleeping alone now. I almost consider waking Noah up and asking to shuffle into his bed, but I don’t do that because that’s not what fifteen year olds ask their frends.

Silently, I pull on my shoes and my beanie and a pair of jeans, and I slip out the window, leaving a snoring Noah behind. Creeping across the roof, I check Daryl isn’t smoking on either porch, then climb down. It’s freezing. Even the air smells of winter; metallic, almost. I hug myself and hurry across the grass to the main house.

Around back, I find his window. No roof under it so I can’t just climb up, and it’s closed, but the curtains are drawn and a dim light is on, so I pick up a handful of dirt and throw it — dirt clacks against glass and I have to dodge out of the way when it all flies back at me; a few bits get in my eye. Finally, the window above me opens and Carl frowns down at me.

“Oh, Romeo, Romeo,” I whisper, rubbing at my eye and using my free hand to gesture up dramatically. “Where for art thou, Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name. Or... err... something... love. And I will no longer be... _walker-bait._ ”

“I don’t think that's how the scene goes,” Carl says.

I shrug. My teeth are chattering but at least my eye isn’t stinging anymore.

“Your light was on,” I say.

“I was drawing,” he answers.

“Why aren’t you whispering?” I ask.

“Nobody’s home,” Carl explains. “Dad and Michonne are out. Maggie and Glenn are on a date. Sasha’s on watch and Gabriel’s staying at his church. You okay?”

“I don’t like sleeping alone,” I confess.

“Me either.”

We can hear a walker outside the wall.

“Can I come in?” I ask.

“Yeah, man.”

* * *

 

The next day, Carl wakes me up before the sun so I have enough time to sneak back to the other house, and later, I wake up again, in my own bed this time, to Carol telling me to do chores before school. Breakfast is oatmeal. Chores is helping Tara hang laundry outside. At some point Carl comes out with a stroller, Judith strapped in.

“Wanna join?” he asks.

“Can’t,” I say. “Chores.”

“See you at school then?”

I shrug. “Sure.”

He leaves with Judith and her stroller and I peg up a cardigan.

“You okay?” Tara asks me.

I look at her. “Yeah, fine.”

“Looked like something was bothering you.”

I shrug. “Just... don’t want to go to school.”

She smirks.

“I mean, I know I have to. I just... want to do more.”

“You want a job?”

“Yeah...”

“As what?”

“Nothing. It's stupid.”

She crosses her arms.

I sigh. “I want to be a runner.”

She thinks about this, then shrugs. “You’d be good at it.”

I blink at her.

“Good luck convincing Deanna and her son though,” she adds. “Aiden's a asshole. And Deanna's not gonna like the idea of a kid being sent out there. But... I can put in a good word? Think we all would, really.”

I nod gratefully.

“But it should come from you first.”

“What?”

“We should go find her,” she says.

“Right now?”

“Laundry first.”

“Right... Yeah. Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just needed that Carol and Oliver bit on the staircase. The secret I love you's literally made me feel like I could pack up fanfiction all together and finish right there. Mamma Carol is the most satisfying thing to write ever. Aughhh.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	69. Season 5 ~ Use Your Voice

Tara walks me to Deanna's, and when we’re there, I spend a lot of time just standing before the front door not moving.

“What do I do?” I ask.

“Use your voice,” Tara answers.

I take a breath and hold it for a second. “Okay...” and I knock. There’s a noise inside and I step back into Tara. I step forward again. “Sorry.”

“Shh.”

“You shh...” I say it to Tara except the door opens and I say it to Deanna instead.

“Oh.”

“No,” I stutter, “not you!”

Deanna blinks. Tara laughs.

“Oliver. Tara. How can I help you both?” Deanna asks.

Tara steps back, putting me in the spotlight.

“Err, can I... talk — to you?”

“Of course, come in.”

Deanna leads us into the dining room and gestures us to take a seat around the table. She stands at the end, her arms stretched over the side like those judges in court I’d see on TV when Dad was home.

She squints. “Now, what is it you'd like to speak to me about?”

I stutter.

“It's more of a proposition,” Tara explains.

“Oh. Well, I'm all ears.”

“I wanted...” My voice breaks. “I wanted to know if I could help out on runs, with Tara and Glenn — and the others?”

Deanna inhales deeply.

“He's good, Deanna. I've seen him out there,” Tara says.

Deanna smiles at her politely. “Thank you,” she says. “But I'd like to hear it from you, Oliver.”

I stare at her.

“Come on.” She leans into the table. “If I'm supposed to trust a child with an adult’s job, you need to tell me why.”

“I can shoot well,” I say the first thing I think of. “And I'm fast.”

Deanna doesn't say anything and I know I’m blowing it.

I sigh. “I don’t know what to say. I'm not perfect for the job. Who is? But... I know what it's like out there. I do. All I wanna do is help. Providing for this place by going on runs is one way that I know how. One way I'm actually _good_ at.”

“And what happens when someone gets hurt?” Deanna asks me. “What happens when you are afraid? What happens when there's no way out and the only thing you can think about is to save yourself?”

I don’t skip a beat. “No one gets left behind.”

Deanna just looks at me, then Tara. “Could you go into the office and ask Maggie in here please?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“It’s just down those steps.”

“Got it.”

When we’re alone, Deanna smiles at me. She claps her hands together and brings the tips of her fingers to her lips. “I have to say, Oliver, I wasn't expecting you to ask for something like this.”

“Me neither,” I admit.

“Why do you want to?” she asks. “Not just that you're capable, but... why do you want this?”

I look for the right words.

“I just... I think I’m better at it.”

“I don't understand.”

“Being a survivor.”

She’s not saying anything and it’s making me nervous.

“Didn't you say that I was intelligent?” I ask. “Intuitive? You said you needed people like that.”

“Yes, I did,” Deanna says. “But I also recall the doubt in your face when I said those things. You didn’t agree with me.”

I’m quiet because she’s right.

“You're fifteen-years-old,” she says. “You can settle here. You can go to school and have friends.”

“I know that,” I insist. “And I'm grateful. I am. But... I can't do that all the time. It only takes one second. If I'm out there, helping, I can try to make that second count. I... I know that I won't always get it right, and I know that people could die. I know. I just want to try.”

Then Maggie and Tara return from the office.

“Ah,” Deanna says, “Maggie. How are the fuel plans coming along?”

“Alright.” Maggie glances at me. “What's goin' on, Oliver?”

“Oliver here is asking to join the run team,” Deanna explains.

Maggie’s eyebrows crease. “Does Carol know yet?”

“No,” I say.

“Rick?”

“No.”

“Carl?”

I swallow. “It’s just you right now.”

“Do you know where Aiden is?” Deanna asks. “I'll need to talk to him about this too.”

“He's in the armoury. I'll go get him,” Maggie offers.

“Thank you.”

Tara and Deanna talk for a few minutes — I try my best not to look to anxious until Maggie and Aiden return finally, gathering at the table. It’s obvious that Aiden knows what this is about because the first thing he says is, “You're kidding, right? The kid?”

Deanna frowns at him.

“You want him to be on my team?” he adds. “He's what — twelve?”

“I'm—”

“Mom,” Aiden says. “I'm not having some _kid_ getting us killed out there.”

“I have reason to believe that Oliver is more than capable.”

“Who'd you hear that from, these two?”

“Yes, actually.”

Aiden huffs.

“From what I've been told,” Deanna begins, “Oliver is experienced with a gun, and has been a reliable asset to his group for a long time now. Plus, Noah is going to be undergoing surgery soon, and you'll need the extra help.”

“He's thirteen, Mom.”

“I’m—”

“ _Mom..._ ”

 “I want you to take him out on a dry run. Local. Nothing too big. A test — see how he gets on.”

He looks furious.

“You don't like him, or he puts a step wrong, you’re the deciding vote,” Deanna says. “But right now, I want you to give this a _chance_.”

Aiden sighs. “I wanna see his tape.”

“They’re confidential.”

“I don’t care. If he's gonna be around my team, I need to see it.” He turns to me, looking me up and down like I'm some ant under a microscope. “See what we're dealing with.”

Deanna glares at him, then looks at me. “Would that alright with you, Oliver?”

Aiden scoffs.

I look at him, then her. “Yes, ma'am.”

* * *

 

While Aiden and Deanna discuss, Tara and I are allowed to leave. Avoiding school, I decide not to tell anyone what’s going on when I get back to the house. If Aiden says no, none of it will matter anyway — Tara disagrees with this strategy but is good enough not to rat on me while I hide up in my room all day, reading and stressing out. I want to go outside, over the wall, but I end up comforting myself by reading more, my hand in my pants — totally innocently, I might add, like rubbing your belly or playing with your hair.

A few hours later, someone is hurrying up the stairs, calling out my name, and I have enough time to take my hand back and put down by book before Carol barges into my bedroom.

“Oliver,” she barks, “explain...”

“W—What?”

“Deanna just got here. She says you’re going to be running, with the others.”

“Really?”

Maggie, Tara, Deanna and Glenn all file into my bedroom. I’m embarrassed — my room is a mess and the windows are shut and it’s stuffy in here.

“Oliver,” Deanna says, “you've been here for hours and you haven't told them yet?”

“Err...”

“Oliver,” Carol says. “Are you hearing us?”

I nod.

“Maybe we should take this downstairs,” Glenn says, and we all leave and gather in the living room. Daryl, noticing the commotion, comes in from the porch. I sit on the couch, hands on my knees, fidgeting and tapping my fingers. The others are watching me, waiting for me to talk.

“I just asked,” I say, “I’ve wanted to for a while. It’s not a big deal.”

“It's not official,” Deanna says, “but he will accompany the runners on a small outing — a dry run.”

“And Aiden agreed to it?” Carol asks.

“Well...” Deanna tilts her head. “It took a little persuasion. But yes, he agreed.”

“Has Carl spoke to you about this?” Carol asks. “Persuaded you?”

“No. He doesn't know yet.”

“I really think you should think about this.”

“By all means,” Deanna agrees with Carol. “In the end, if he still wants to, tomorrow at nine they're going on the run. Meeting outside my home. But as his guardian, Carol, I need to hear it from you that you're comfortable with this, too.”

Deanna knows that Carol isn't my mother — at the welcome party, I heard them and a few other women talking about it.

_“Must be hard,” Mrs. Neudermyer said. “Raising him without his father.”_

_“Not really,” Carol said. “I’m raising him without his mother, too.”_

_She got funny looks for saying it. Carol didn’t seem to mind. She looked a little giddy and had an empty glass of wine in hand._

_“He’s my boy,” she said, “but he’s not my boy.”_

_“He’s adopted?” Erin asked._

_“Yes,” Carol told her, “just... without the paperwork.”_

_“It’s a wonderful thing you’ve done,” Deanna said. “That boy loves you. I can see it.”_

_Then Carol looked at me across the room of thirty people, right at me, like she could sense that I was there, sitting alone and watching her. And then her face shut down a little, like she’d woken up from a dream, and she walked away to get another glass of wine._

Carol seems to appreciate Deanna’s deal-breaker.

“Don't see what the big deal is,” Daryl pipes up. “Boy can take care of himself. Was doin’ just fine the day me and Michonne found him out there. Probably would be now, if we hadn’t.”

I glance at him — sometimes, when Daryl is nice to me, I get that feeling Patrick must’ve gotten when he shook his hand.

Carol considers this, then nods. “He'll be at yours in the morning.”

Deanna seems pleased. She nods and says, “Oliver, tomorrow at nine. Have a good evening, everyone.”

She leaves and I'm only slightly shell-shocked. Glenn and Tara give me shoulder pats, then go on with their afternoon. Daryl nods at me, then leaves, too. Carol sighs sharply through her teeth, shaking her head.

“Don’t get killed... or your grounded.”

I want to laugh, but I just nod. “Yes, ma'am.”

After that, I’m told to go to the last hour of school, which I do. Carl says, “Sup?” and I write in my margins, _‘Gotta tell u something’_ and he just shrugs, and for the walk home he barely talks to me, just Ron until he breaks off for home. Carl walks me to my house, but doesn’t come inside.

“Can we talk about the thing?” I ask.

He sighs. “I’ll come by later.”

“Why not now?”

“Later, man.”

He leaves, and I go next door, feeling like I’m missing something. He’s angry at me. For what? For going on the run tomorrow? Except, he doesn’t know about that, yet.

I find Carol in the kitchen, preparing something for supper. Except now she’s leaning against the counter, staring down, looking worried and lost. I touch her fingers and she jumps.

“Careful,” I whisper, “your possum is showing.”

She sighs. “You were so quiet.”

“Sorry.”

I grab a cooking pot when Carol gestures for it. She grabs a small sack of pasta —Mrs. Neudermyer’s creation— and puts it on the table. We make carbonara.

“You talk to Carl yet?”

I shake my head. “He didn’t want to talk to me.”

“He upset?”

“I don’t know. He just said he’d come by later.”

Carol sighs. “Okay.”

* * *

 

Carl comes by after supper. It’s weird eating separately now, separate meals in separate houses. Carol made dessert, cookies, and I saved him some. He seems in a better mood, too, so, while he’s eating, sitting on my bed with me, and we’re laughing about something Ron said to him earlier, I pick my moment and tell him, “I might be going on a run tomorrow.”

Carl’s face falls and he swallows. “What?”

“That's what I was doing today,” I answer. “Asking Deanna. It’s why I missed school. Noah has his op soon, so... I might fill in for him.”

Carl is watching me. I keep talking, as if to lengthen the time where we live in a world where he hasn’t decided he’s angry at me again or not.

“I never thought I'd get the nuts to ask,” I say. “I didn't even mean to. I was just talking to Tara this morning and it all just... came out. I would've talked to you before if I'd known I wanted it so much... It's not official... I can say no...”

“But you won’t,” he tells the space in front of him.

“Hey, man...” I reach out but he pulls away — it happens slowly, at first, but then more surely. He steps off the bed. He won’t even look at me. “Carl.”

He leaves my room, marches right out of the house. He leaves black air behind and I have to trace the wall with my hand to get out of it. Downstairs, Carol looks alarmed when I come down.

“Carl, he—”

“I know,” I grunt, leaving. “Carl...”

He walks across to his house.

“Carl, wait!”

Rushing, I catch his sleeve as he climbs up his porch. Carl shrugs me off. My throat turns to the Sahara dessert because Carl’s face is a closed-up box — I don’t know what’s going on inside it, like Schrodinger’s cat that Erin taught us about the other day in class.

Carl speaks: “What’s wrong with you?”

 _Cat’s out of the box,_ I think. _Not dead or alive, but a walker, furious and snapping and growling._

I don’t say anything.

“Don’t pull that shit,” he yells. “Don’t pull your quiet _crap_ on me again!”

And then we’re both yelling at each other.

“Again?” I ask. “Again? Like it wasn’t _you_ who totally lost your shit at the church that night? Like you didn’t totally overreact?”

“Yeah, and look what happened?” he asks, glaring. “The next day... you were _shot!_ You left me and then you were _shot._ It gets worse, man! Don’t you see?”

“It's gonna get worse whatever we do!”

Carl paces. “You know what else happened that night, at the church?” he asks me. “You called yourself a bad boyfriend. And I said you weren’t. That I’d tell you if you were. Guess what, now I am. You _have_ been a bad boyfriend. Since we got here, you’ve been a shit.”

I grimace.

“God!” Carl turns away, hands on his face. “You're so annoying!”

“I'm not trying to piss you off.”

Carl grits his teeth, glancing over at Daryl who is sitting next door on the porch. I didn’t even notice him when I left. He lights a cigarette.

When I look back at Carl, he is turning to go inside.

“Look,” I blurt. “I thought if I just didn't think about it, it all wouldn't bother me so much... but it _does._ I need to go out there, man. I feel like a zoo animal in this place. I just—”

“Bullshit!” he shouts. “You think I don't feel like that, too!? Like I’m trapped in this place? Like I’m not some monster dressed up and pretending?”

“Y — You’re not...”

“Shut up!” he bites. “Shut up, shut up! Asshole! _Asshole!_ I'm trying! I've been hanging around with the others all day! There's me thinking: _‘He'll come along soon. He’ll try. I just gotta wait a little longer. He'll try with me. It’ll make it easier for both of us. A little more bearable...”_ And the other day, when you didn't wanna come to Ron's yet? That was okay too. And today when you almost didn't come to school, I didn't say anything. I understand that it’s hard for you, that you just need time, that — that it’s all coming on a little strong. But... you can’t just make up excuses. You can’t just give up trying.”

We stare at each other, the whole world silent — even the birds stop chirping.

“You were right,” I say finally. “I have decided.”

Carl’s breathing very hard, but his face is softer.

“And I'm sorry I didn't say anything before,” I go on. “I’m just... sorry. But I am trying. This, going on the dry run tomorrow, is me trying. I have to make this work, living here. Going out there is a way I know. I have to.”

He takes a steep breath.

“Fine,” he says. “But you die out there, I'm gonna kill you.”

I huff a laugh and hug him. He hugs me back.

“I die out there,” I say into his shoulder, “I'm gonna kill me, too.”

“Then don't die, okay?”

“Okay, man.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't want him to always make the best decisions. He's a teenager, and an idiot.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	70. Season 5 ~ Eigengrau

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one’s in Carl’s...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if I hadn't made it clear enough. But the gap between Forget and Spend is going to be stretched out a few weeks in this story. So, the run with the revolving door hasn't happened yet :)

The next morning, I wake up early to Oliver crawling into bed with me, and we spend a while together before he has to go get ready for the dry run.

I ask him if he’s worried and he tells me, “I think so.” And then he asks me, “Are you?” and I say, “Of course.”

He has this look on his face like he wants to say something, so I wait, and he does: “Remember back at the prison, when you talked about being two things at once?”

I nod.

“Well, that’s what I’m going to be, too,” he says. “I’m going to be a runner, sometimes, out there, and I’m going to be a kid, for the rest of the time, in here. I'll hang out and do chores and play videogames and eat potato chips. And, you and I? We're gonna hate and love it at the same time, all muddled and conflicted about it until it starts to feel a little more normal. And, we won't forget how it feels out there, and we won't get weak. Because that isn't us anymore.”

“Do what you want, man,” I say, “just... let me in on it sometimes.”

“I will,” he says. “I will... I'm gonna try. And... I can't promise that I won't get shot again, and I can't promise that I won’t ever annoy you again, or that I'll find a way to stop you worrying about me, but... I can promise that I’ll always be coming back for you.”

I touch his cheek.

“I'm always coming back for you, man,” he says, and I kiss him, and I keep on kissing him while he’s saying it: “I’m coming back for you...” and as we roll around under the bedsheets together, all I sat back is, “I know...”

* * *

 

Later, when the rest of Alexandria are awake, I walk Oliver to Deanna’s house where I wave him and the others goodbye and leave them to load up Aiden’s eagle truck.

I meet Penelope in Aaron’s dark room, where she’d invited me earlier in the morning. She has a key, since she’s the one who takes most of the photos for the scout trips. She has more photos, and wants me to help her develop them.

It takes a long time, and the process is very complicated, but she says it would have taken longer and been even more complicated if Aaron hadn’t already made the developing water beforehand for her. She says he’s better at making it than her, but that she is better at the developing part:—“He blotched a group photo last time. It was the only one we had of everyone, so I’ve been taking more of us all to do myself.”

“Cool.”

“I snapped one of you and Ollie kissing today...”

“What?”

“Yeah. I uh... won’t be giving it to Aaron though. You can keep it.”

“Thanks.”

She works for a while on the solution.

“You're just as quiet as him.”

“Nobody's as quiet as him,” I say.

“You obviously haven't met Enid then,” she says.

Finally, Penelope turns to me. “This is the part where nothing can go wrong. I'm going to develop the film. And you, Carl... are going to switch the lights off for me. Here. Help me board up the windows so that it's dark.”

We get to it — fitting large black tarps over the windows and towels under the door frame, blocking out sunlight. The lightbulbs flicker overhead.

“We're running out of electricity,” Penelope says.

“But... the solar panels.”

“They need new parts,” she says. “I heard they've only got a few weeks left of power. Eugene, your scientist—

“He's not a scientist.”

“Engineer,” she corrects herself. “He’s coming up with something to fix them. Or, that’s what Reg told me. If not the runners will go out to find something.”

“I heard about the run that went wrong a couple months ago,” I decide to say. “When Aiden and Nicholas were the only ones that came back...”

She looks uncomfortable. “That was a long time ago. They're more experienced now. They know what they're doing and so does your group.”

I nod, glad to hear this.

“Okay, you ready?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

“'Kay, this is gonna take a while. Stay by the light switch.”

“I won't go anywhere, swear.”

“Alright, go ahead.”

I flip the switch. And then darkness. Total darkness. I'm not sure I've ever seen it. Not like this, with no dim shine from the moon. Since the outbreak, the night hasn't changed, just the things that hide inside it. Now, though, there's nothing. Not even shadows, like in the tombs. After a while, though, I start to see colours — whole swirls of it, like ink-blots across a black piece of paper. I don’t know how else to explain it.

I tell Penelope and she says, “It’s eigengrau. Perfect darkness. So dark you can see colours.”

I smile, impressed, then ask, “How's it coming along?”

“I can't see.”

“Right.”

“Won't be too long.”

While she works, we talk for a while about Noah’s surgery and the eigengrau and how Noah’s little brothers were afraid of the dark. I tell her that Judith gets afraid of the dark sometimes, if she can’t hear us. Penelope says little kids are always scared of the dark, that it’s something you either grow out of or learn to ignore.

“My sister never grew out of it,” she admits. “She was afraid of everything.”

“You had a sister?”

I hear her nod. “Drippy.”

We’re quiet for a while.

“We’ve all lost somebody,” I tell her.

“Yeah...”

She waits a beat.

“You ever kill someone?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“Me, too. Three people.”

“Two,” I say. “A kid, my age. And... my mom. She was dying. I put her down. I had to do it.”

“I’m sorry,” Penelope says. “I... I know what that feels like. To kill family. To put them down. I... I killed Drippy like that, too.”

That's all she says, until the developments are done, and we put the lights back on.

* * *

 

On the way back, I see Oliver walking back to the house alone. He must’ve just gotten back, because he’s carrying his backpack and his boots are muddy. I call out, run, and hug him in the street.

We go inside his house quickly, kissing and rushing up the stairs. Nobody’s home. We stumble into his room and collapse along his bed, kissing and kissing and kissing until — “Hey, guys...”

I startle and twist around. Noah is sitting across the room, book in hand.

“God, man,” Oliver groans.

Noah gets up. “I should go.”

“We’re not — We didn't mean to barge in.”

“Yeah... Think I'm gonna go anyway... Thanks for helping out on the run today by the way. I would be in surgery right now, but Pete put it back a couple hours. I’m headed there now...”

“Erm... good luck.”

“Yeah, good luck, man.”

Noah nods, then leaves.

* * *

 

Oliver and I spend a while babysitting Judith at my house. People keep congratulating Oliver for his run and he looks like he doesn’t know how to take it all. At some point, he asks me, “Guess what I found today?” and throws me a packet of M&M's.

I laugh. “Better not be stale this time.”

We share them with each other. Even Judith has some.

“Oh. I got something for you, too,” I say. “Well... it’s drying now, but we can get it later.”

“What?”

“Penelope,” I say. “She took a photo of us. It’s kinda nice.”

“Cool. How'd they all come out?”

“Yeah, fine,” I say, wondering if I should tell him what she told me, about her sister, but I chose not to. Not that. It’s not my story to tell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured that I might as well fix Noah's leg before he dies a horrible death.
> 
> Happy reading.


	71. Season 5 ~ The Beaver the Honey Bee

After another run, I bump into Rick while he's heading off for duty. He asks me why I’m holding my shoe, and why my wrist is swollen, and I tell him about the beaver dam.

“I didn’t know it was occupied.”

“Are you sure about this whole running thing?”

“Yes,” I say. “The beaver bit me. Not a walker.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I answer. “Could’ve been bad, but... it got my shoe, not me.” I smile at that — déjà vu.

Rick asks, “How was target practice?”

“Kinda dumb,” I say, only it sounds like, “I... used BB guns. Aiden wouldn’t let me use a real gun until I could prove I’m a good enough shot.”

“Were you?”

I nod.

Rick smiles. “Carol was a good teacher.”

“She was,” I say. “How’s work for you?”

“Good. Fighting crime, all that,” Rick answers, then gets a little awkward. “It's quiet, really... mostly jus' talking, listening to people go on about their missing frying pans.”

I make an ‘ah’ noise.

“Your friends came over a while ago,” Rick changes subject. “Carl left with them all. They'll be somewhere around. Jessie's, probably.”

I nod.

“Did you miss school?”

“Wasn’t on today. But, whenever I do miss it, Carl makes notes for me.”

“Good. Don't stay out too late.”

* * *

 

Ron is alone inside his kitchen, crouched at the foot of the pantry with an unlit cigarette tucked behind his ear. Using the toe of my sneaker, I nudge his shoe, and he swings around and crumples into a ball. I stagger backwards.

“Jesus, Ron!”

“God!” he cries. “Ever heard of knocking?”

“You left the door open!”

He sighs, and then starts laughing, and once he picks himself up and stops freaking out —which takes a lot of hand-raking through his own hair— he goes back to rooting through the pantry.

“Holler if you hear anyone. Dad’ll kill me if he catches us.”

I frown, but obediently go and stand at the kitchen doorway. “What are you doing anyway?”

“We found another house, in the brownstone. Everyone's over there waiting.” He gets up, crosses the kitchen, and suddenly sticks the top of his head in my face. I jump back against the doorframe.

“Err, Ron? I think you're cool and all, but... I'm not sure I like you enough for this.”

“Shut up. Does my hair smell of anything?”

“Why would—”

“Dude, just smell.”

“You smell like... Nonno.”

“Huh?” Ron pulls away, pulling a tuft of fringe down to sniff. “What is no-no?!”

“No. Nonno,” I correct him.

Ron stares at me, raking his fringe back again and resitting the cigarette behind his ear.

I translate: “Grandpa. Nonno is Grandpa in Italian.” I shake my head. “Ron, you smell like my grandpa…”

“I pulled out some Graham crackers, but Mom's Oregano pot fell on me.”

“That's it!” I point, almost hopping on one foot. “Oregano. My grandpa used to smell of Oregano and old newspapers!”

Ron shakes his head and calls me a freak but in a good way and then he stuffs his head in my face again and asks, “Is it noticeable? Like, the smell?”

“Not reprehensibly,” I answer.

Ron snickers. “You're spending too much time with Nell.”

He goes back into the kitchen.

I glance down the hallway. “So, what are you doing?”

“Getting these...” Three bottles of beer are suddenly thrust into my arms. “Dad's stash. But we can't take anymore, or he'll know.” He gathers another three in his arms, too. “Now you're here I won't have to make two trips.”

“Why do you have a cigarette?”

“To smoke it.”

“Can I have some?”

“Duh.”

“Come on, man. Let's get out of here.”

We’re going to, but that’s when we see his father’s figure coming up the porch steps through the door windows. Ron shoves me and I stagger to the other end of the hallway. At a yank on my collar, I’m staggering out the back door and catching three beer bottles as they’re thrown at me.

“Hide.”

“Okay. Wait, the—” I can’t talk more because he’s already gone and Pete is in the house. I hide under the back porch banister.

“Ron...”

“Dad. Hey... I'm, uh... just heading out t—”

“What is that?”

“What? Oh.” The cigarette. “I, uh...”

“You think you’re grown?”

“No. Dad—”

“You think you’re a man?”

“No, I’m sorry.”

I hear scuffling. Ron yelps. Pete’s breath is fast and rough.

“Eat it!”

“No, please...”

More scuffling. I hear him do it, choking, gagging, groaning.

“Get up,” Pete says. “Get out of my sight — and show some respect.”

“Yes, sir. Yessir.”

Pete follows him out onto the porch. I barely stagger back fast enough not to be seen. Then Ron is shoved down. His dad grabs his arm and pins him at a strange angle to make him look at him.

“You better start appreciating everything I'm doing here for you. We lost everything. We almost lost you boys. Don’t make that for nothing. You got that?”

Ron cries out, nodding frantically. “Yes! Yessir.”

He’s released, and Pete goes back inside. I peek over the porch. Ron’s wincing, wiping his face, looking scared and embarrassed. He gets up, slowly, and limps off the porch. He spits tobacco and torn up, soggy paper into the ground, then smiles at me. It’s in his teeth, too.

“Why are you smiling?” I ask.

He pats his pocket. I see an outline of a cigarette pack in it.

“Come on,” he says, “get the beers, let’s go.”

* * *

 

He makes me promise not to tell the others, to forget about it, and at first it’s very hard to do that, but then it’s very easy, because a bee stings me as we head up the steps.

“Ack!”

“Aw, shit, man,” Ron says, watching the honey bee land on the window-ledge. He picks it up. “Poor guy.”

A little guilty, I hold out my hand and Ron places it in my palm. My other hand throbs. Ron takes it, and carefully pulls the bee’s stinger out.

“You okay?”

I nod, still holding the bee. It seems fine, really, and tries to fly away, but I close my hand around it and we go inside. The brownstone apartment is empty and nice-looking, with a few backpacks by the door. Bean’s here, and comes to investigate. I shuffle past him and go upstairs to find something to put the bee in. There’s music playing — some old 60’s band.

_Please don’t bother trying to find her_  
_She’s not there_  
_Well, let me tell you about the way she looked_  
_The way she acts and the colour of her hair_  
_Her voice was soft and cool_  
_Her eyes were clear and bright_  
_But she’s not there..._

They’re in a bedroom, playing cards on the bed.

“Hey, guys,” I say, and they all wave or say hi back. I crouch down and kiss Carl on the cheek, then ask, “Anybody got a jar?”

“Somewhere, I guess. Why?”

“What happened to your hand?”

“Whoa! It looks like a balloon.”

“I got stung,” I say, “by this.” I open my palm and the honey bee buzzes off around the room — I wasn’t expecting this, and neither way anybody else because they all flinch and jump out of the way. “Oh, shit. Get it!”

Mikey grabs a shoe.

“No!” I gasp. “Don’t kill it. It can’t sting you.”

They help me catch it.

“Should we let it go?”

“It’s going to die anyway.”

“But... shouldn’t it be free?”

We choose in the end to put it in an upside-down cup and leave it on top of the dresser. Penelope puts some strange-smelling scream on my stung hand, and then they all go back to their game, except Ron, who sits at the window and pulls it open.

“Mikey, turn down the music?” he asks.

“You shouldn’t smoke those. They’re not yours.”

“Quit being so bossy,” Ron tells him.

“You won’t think I’m bossy when you die of cancer.”

“Come on, Mikey...”

Mikey gives up and turns down the music. Ron lights his cigarette. I sit with him, and we share it between each other. I get the same head rush like I did back at Grady, smoking with Carl, and after a while, the feeling spreads across my whole body by the time Ron and I finish the cigarette.

I’m looking at the bee again, a piece of paper under the cup so it doesn’t escape. My hand throbs still, but the swelling has gone down.

“Buttons died,” I’m told at some point, by Penelope.

“Oh. What?” Mikey asks.

“Buttons?” Carl asks.

“A horse,” Penelope elaborates. “Aaron and Daryl tried to catch him a few days ago, but the rotters got him first.”

“That sucks,” Mikey complains. “I was rooting for him.”

“They were never going to catch him,” Ron says. “He always ran.”

“At least he was free,” someone says.

We drink our beer each, even Carl — who still looks like he’d rather eat string beans. I get to thinking about Buttons, how he was free when he died, and how I think I’d rather be free, too, to die, so I lift the paper from the cup and let the bee fly away out the window.

* * *

 

At some point, we play truth or dare together. “How many rotters have you put down?” “Try to pick up Bean.” “What happened on the worst day of your life?” “What's the most embarrassing thing that's happened to you?”

“Um...” Carl thinks about it. “My dad... walked in on us, one time, while we were... you know...”

I remember it and die inside. The others laugh, too, asking embarrassing questions that make me laugh harder, and it’s while doing that, laughing my ass off, that I suddenly realise how happy I am. For a moment, I’m not the orphan. I'm not the boy whose brother died in a prison shower-room, bleeding out like a shaken soda can. I’m not the boy who’s killed people. Who got abused, and shot, and watched a man get decapitated. For this one, single moment... I’m just me.

Meet Oliver, the boy who can't stop laughing.

Next, Enid is dared to put her hands in Ron’s pant pockets for a whole round. Then it’s my turn. I pick dare, too, and have to do Seven Minutes in Heaven with Mikey in the closet across the room. It’s fine. Mikey’s pretty easy to talk to. We talk about his mom for a while, how she had OCD, and how she didn’t last long after the turn and how much his dad changed after she was gone. He asks me how the runs are. I tell them they’re fine. He asks me if I like working with his dad and I say yes, but he knows I’m lying.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I like him better than I like Ron’s dad.”

“Good point,” he agrees. “Me too.”

We’re quiet for a while.

“What are you supposed to do during these things?” I ask.

“Fool around,” Mikey answers. “That’s the stereotype.”

“Oh... err...”

“Don’t worry,” he laughs, “I won't try to kiss you.”

“Thanks,” I say.

“How’s your hand?”

“Sore,” I say, looking at it. It’s dark in here, so I can only see through the slits of light coming in through the door. “But fine.”

“Enid!” we hear outside.

“Oh my God.”

“Enid, stop! I'm gonna pee!”

“Guys?!” I call out.

Remembering us, the others let us out of the closet.

“I never knew Heaven was so dark and stuffy,” I say.

“C'mon,” Penelope grins, “it's Enid's turn.”

* * *

 

Later, we visit Noah at the clinic with Penelope. They both do most of the talking, so Carl and I leave after long. We don’t go back to our houses though — Carl has a surprise for me in the empty house.

“No way, man... You kept our deal?”

I’m looking at a TV and a DVD player. Carl grins and switches them on. He points to something on the coffee table. “Open those.”

I do. “Oh, God. You found them? All three!”

“Yep,” he says, dragging me to the couch, remote in hand. “ _Fellowship_ , _Twin Towers_ , and _Return of the King_. Extended edition...”

“ _Extended edition!_ ”

I swear to whatever may be left in the universe that my eyes almost pop out of their sockets when the title sequence of _Fellowship_ plays on the screen. I start trembling. Carl laughs, slinging his arms over my shoulders.

_‘The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it.’_

“I love you,” I say. “I love you so much, man.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was She's Not There by the Zombies. I also finished reading August, the book Oliver finished a few chapters back, and jesus that was mind-fucky...
> 
> Happy reading.


	72. Season 5 ~ Marry Me

_~Several days pass~_

* * *

 

Late at night, while I can’t sleep, some sudden light flashes from my window

_Flash-flash-flash-flash.  
Flash-flash._

I sit up, wiping my face.

_Flash-flash-flash-flash.  
Flash-flash._

I know who’s at the window before I even open it. “Carl...”

“It’s me,” someone else says.

I startle and stagger back.

In the blackness, the torchlight flips around and Penelope’s face looks down at me.

I frown. “What're you doing here?”

“Saying hi,” she answers, and flashes the flashlight under her face in the same pattern as before, then the light is gone and her facial features burn into the blind parts of my eyeballs.

“You’re using Morse code?”

_Flash-flash. Flash-flash._   
_Flash._   
_Flash-flash-flash._

I think of the Morse code board next door, but I give up.

“Means yes,” she tells me. “Two dots twice, for Y—” She demonstrates. “—and one dot for E. Three for S.”

“Oh.”

“I like your T-shirt.”

“Thanks.” It’s dark and has the words _‘this is my lazy superhero costume’_ on the front. “So... err...”

“There's a storm coming.” Penelope can change subject so fast she leaves you with carpet burn. I look at the sky when she points, seeing the clear night above. The stars and moon look so bright I see the grass when I look over the edge of the roof — now the retina burns are gone.

“Looks pretty clear to me,” I say.

“I was going to go and find Noah at the clinic, but I knew he'd be asleep. And... I thought you'd be asleep, too. But... I wanted to see... you. I wanted to see you.”

I nod and inhale.

“You're wheezing.”

“I know.”

“Have you taken your inhaler?”

I tap out on her hand. _Tap-tap. Tap-tap. Tap. Tap-tap-tap._

“Good,” she says. She looks tired — a gaunt type. Even in the night, I can see the dark circled under her eyes, and the red around them.

“Have you been crying?” I ask.

“No.”

“Really?”

“Enid's not home,” she mumbles, as if in answer. “I was getting bad thoughts, so... I came and found you.”

I’m staring at her.

“What?” she asks.

“Do you want me to hug you?”

“No,” she says. “Not if that’s strange. I know I’m a little strange.”

I laugh and hug her across the window-ledge.

“Have you been crying?” she asks me, the same way I'd asked her.

“No,” I answer, the same way she'd answered — this is how I realise she was lying. “Do you want to come in?”

She nods.

We sit on my bed, curled up in the blankets. She’s very cold for a living thing.

“Where's Bean?” I ask.

“Outside.”

“Can’t stop thinking about the cake yesterday,” she says.

There was a wedding, priested by Gabriel. Carol stayed up for hours making a cake for the espousing. She even got Carl to sculpt two tiny replicas of the bride and groom to stick on top of the finished product. He painted them, too. The cake was amazing. The groom wore a suit and the bride wore a summer dress that Erin made herself. Totally beautiful. To substitute for a veil, a few of the younger kids made a flower tiara, with ribbons and vines trailing down her back.

“She reminds me a lot of Rosa,” Penelope adds. “What was it she used to call me?”

“ _Bella bambina..._ ” I whisper.

We’re quiet a minute.

“She... used to talk to me, but... really talk,” I tell her, “like she totally knew me, like I was the only person in the world, and... I just knew everything was going to be okay.”

Penelope puts her head on my shoulder. “You ever feel like you’re never really you?”

I think about this. Then I nod.

“It’s so sad,” she whispers, “that we’re stuck here, in ourselves, for the rest of our lives. Sometimes I can’t stand thinking that. Sometimes... it’s the worse thought in the world to me.”

Some big, ugly sadness takes over me for a moment then, like I know exactly what she means. I change the subject.

“How’s Noah healing?”

“Fine,” she answers. “Coming home either tomorrow or the next day. You'll get your room-mate back again.”

Another long space of quiet and sad.

“You wanna go somewhere?” I ask.

Penelope nods, tugging on her collar like she feels trapped in it. “Yeah.”

* * *

She waits outside the house next door while I sneak in and wake Carl up, then all three of us head over to the empty house together — we don’t go to the Brownstone apartment because Penelope explains that that’s where Enid is tonight, with Ron; that it’s best we steer clear of it.

“Sorry about the mess,” I say. “It's only ever us, so... we kinda don't really clean.”

Penelope shrugs and sits on the couch. Carl puts on _My Girl_ and we stay up late to watch it. Penelope and I cry and Carl is very very quiet. Then we put on _Fellowship_ because the series and _My Girl_ are the only four movies Carl and I have here. Carl, having only just finished this series a few days ago, passes out after only the first few minutes. We turn it down for him, and later get to the part where Sam almost drowns and Frodo pulls him onto his boat. _‘I made a promise, Mr Frodo. A promise. Don’t you leave him Samwise Gamgee. And I don’t mean to... I don’t mean to.’ ‘Oh, Sam...’_

“Dorks.” Penelope smiles.

“I love that part,” I say. “They love each other so much.”

“They do,” she says.

We watch for a little longer.

“Do you ever think about going home?” Penelope asks finally.

“Yeah,” I answer. “All the time. I will, one day. I want to... put my parents down.”

She looks at me.

I ask, “Why’d you ask?”

“I want to get my old notebooks,” she answers.

I find this funny.

“You weren’t evacuated?” she asks me.

I shake my head. “Patrick and I stayed. Mom and Dad were already... turned. We just... waited. Then we left.”

“How did he...”

“He got sick,” I answer. “At the prison.”

It’s not something we talk about: how. It’s just something we leave out.

“I put down my sister,” she tells me. “She was hurt. She... couldn’t move, from the neck down. There was nothing I could do.” She inhales. “I gave her some sleeping pills, waited for her to fall asleep, then...”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

She shrugs.

“How’d you meet Enid?” I ask.

Penelope laughs — it’s a bad kind of laugh. “It’s complicated.”

“Okay,” I say because she doesn’t say anything else, and then I ask, “Are you okay?”

She flashes her flash-light at me.

_Flash-flash. Flash-flash._   
_Flash._   
_Flash-flash-flash._

And I ask, “Do you mean that?”

_Flash-shine.  
Flash. Flash._

I don’t know what this means, but I can guess.

“Me neither,” I say.

I think that feelings can become familiar to a person, like how I feel closer to the outside than here in Alexandria sometimes, even though outside is terrible a lot of the time. It’s comforting to me. I know myself out there. I feel more a part of the universe. And I think, to Penelope — to Nell... she’s someone who feels the same way about sadness.

We finish the movie together.

* * *

 

It’s dark out, still, but birds are singing so I know the sun will wake up soon. I have music playing. Some mix CD that has songs by Damien Rice and The Bee Gees and a lot more that I don’t know, all genres mixed up into one homemade album.

“Do you want to dance with me?” I ask at some point, and Penelope looks at me like I just spoke in Horse. I smile and stand up, hands on my hips.

“You look like Pan.”

“Peter?”

She nods. She’s been reading that book lately.

“C'mon, Wendy,” I say. “Let's fly.”

“I'm no good.”

“Me neither. Not sure if you noticed, but I never got to grow my own pair of wings.”

“I'm not talking about flying, Ollie,” she says. “Got any fairy dust?”

“Sorry. Ran out a long time ago. Tink's still mad at me for running off into the apocalypse.”

She laughs, then stops as not to wake Carl, who is a drooling sculpture on the armchair. Penelope gets up, shutting her eyes as if fairy dust is being sprinkled across her face, all sparkling between her freckles. Then a song comes on.

We turn our heads to the CD player, distracted. I've never heard a song like this one. It’s good. It’s so good. And Penelope's hands slip into mine and they're cold against my palms and fingers.

“ _‘Wendy,’_ ” I whisper, “ _‘the moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it.’_ ”

She sighs. “Knew you'd read it already.”

I smirk. “Shall I lead?”

She nods, glancing at her feet again. She steps closer, hands around my shoulders, my hands on her waist, and then we dance. I think dancing like this is impossible to do wrong, if you do it slow and calm enough, if you don’t try to hard. It feels more like we’re hugging and moving at the same time, really.

“Guess Aaron wasn't kidding about the dance troop,” I joke, as the song begins to slow down.

Penelope smiles into my shoulder — I feel it.

“Are we flying yet?” she asks.

“I think so.”

“Tarantism,” she whispers.

I look at her, confused.

“It means overcoming low-spirits by dancing,” she says. “It's also a disease you get from a spider bite.”

“You're kidding.”

“No,” she says, and pulls away slowly, looking tired. She sits on the couch, curling up at the end. “Night, Oliver.”

“Night, P — Night, Nell.”

* * *

 

The next morning, we wake up early and leave. The overcast clouds are thick and dark through the windows, like they’re angry — flashing in the distance and rumbling a few moments later. Penelope hugs us, then heads home. Carl and I go the other way. The air is thick and windy and tastes like electricity.

“See you for school,” I say, and I’m going to kiss him, too, but the sky opens up and a veiny bolt of lightning shoots across the distant sky. Suddenly, rain falls like a bucket on our heads — thick and wet and heavy. We’re wincing and gasping and Carl grins at me, shivering already.

“One, two...”

“What're you doing?” Carl asks me.

“Counting. Three. Four, fi-”

Thunder shakes the ground. I feel it in my chests.

“Scared of thunder?” he asks me.

“I think so...”

“Wasn't much fun last time, huh?” he says. He smiles. “It's the lightning you should be afraid of. Not the thunder.”

“It's loud,” I say.

“It's sound,” he says back. “Sound won't hurt you. It's what caused it that will.”

“You're not helping, man.”

“You should go inside. Want me to come with?”

I shake my head. “I'm fine.” Another flash of lightning, turning the sky into a Van Gogh painting. Thunder right after. I flinch. “It’s coming closer.”

“It’ll be gone soon,” he says, and kisses me, and then we’re just kissing in the rain. When he pulls away, his eyelashes are sticking, and rain drips from his hair and runs down his face. His teeth chatter. Mine do, too.

“I love you, man,” I say.

And with his words all swallowed and muffled in the rain, he says, “I want to marry you.”

“What?” I ask, even though I heard.

And he says again, “I want to marry you.” And I watch him. And thunder and lightning crashes overhead. And I blink. And I kiss him.

“Ask me again,” I say.

“Marry me,” he says.

“No,” I say. And I say again, “Ask me again... one day when we’re old.”

He grins.

He says back, “One day.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recommended songs by Damien Rice is Delicate, and by The Bee Gees that one that was in the episode Spicks & Specks. Random other good song is Perth by Daughter. 
> 
> The last part was for you BloodGutsandChocolatePudding.
> 
> Oliver's getting kinda sad lately, huh?
> 
> Happy reading.


	73. Season 5 ~ Spend, Part 1: This is the Beginning

As April rolls in, I go to school, or swim in the lake with my friends. I read so many books that sometimes there are whole days lost to them, and a few days ago, we celebrated Carl’s fifteenth birthday. Jessie made a banner. Carol made corn casserole and cookies, since there weren’t enough ingredients to make a cake. He totally loved it. For gifts, we all got him things that he could use for his art; a drawing pad, pencils, paints, watercolours, paintbrushes, his own carving knife and some blocks of wood found out in the forest, and even a small, desk-easel that Jessie helped me make for him. He couldn’t believe it, and has been so distracted in the last few days that I’ve hardly seen him. But that’s okay. I’ve been busy, too, working, like today.

I’m going on a warehouse run to look for batteries. The electricity went out yesterday. Me and Mikey were playing pool in his garage together, since everyone else was busy or not around, and everything suddenly went black.

“Whoa...”

I could hear him feeling around the room for me, knocking over pool cues — we both made an effort to put them back in the same place. Then, on the way back upstairs, we staggered out into the sunlight, laughing and acting all dramatic about it. Nicholas was standing in the living room, holding his breakfast and still in his pyjamas. He didn’t look impressed.

Mikey chuckled. “There’s a power-cut.”

Nicholas looked like he already knew this. “I’ll talk to Eugene. Hey, are the cues back where they belong?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Mickey groaned.

Nicholas huffed, then went into the dining room to eat — Mikey bickered with his dad a lot, but not like Ron did with his. I knew so because I asked if Nicholas ever beat him, and he said, “No way, man.”

I didn’t say anything else.

Now, I check out my Glock, some ammo, my knife, and my machete from the armoury. Enid gives me a cup of coffee because I drink coffee now, and then I head for Deanna’s house with the others.

“Hello,” Deanna says as we arrive. I get to helping Maggie, Tara, Glenn, Nicholas, and Aiden in loading the eagle truck, and a little while later Eugene comes to help. Noah, too, who has fully recovered from his surgery. He’ll have his limp for the rest of his life, but at least it’s not in pain anymore.

“Did you get the job?” I ask him.

“Yeah,” he says, showing me grey notebook. “Reg gave it to me to write down the plans for building designs.”

I smile, then toss a dish towel at Tara when she asks for it. Eugene pulls out an empty battery from his supply bag, the same battery we’re looking for today.

Noah presents him with a handgun.

“Oh, no thank you,” Eugene says.

“Jus' take it,” Nicholas grumbles.

“You gotta protect yourself,” Noah adds.

“Not if I don't go!” Eugene argues.

“Not driving all that way so we can just drive back with the wrong shit,” Aiden tells him.

“It's a dozen of these...” Eugene holds up the empty battery. “They're consistent in appearance across manufacturers. This shit will be right. I... I will _install_ said shit. Then that grid will be fully operational again.”

Noah gives him an exasperated look and pushes the gun into his chest. Eugene takes it, giving me a dissatisfied glare when I snicker.

“Heard you talking to Nell last night,” Tara tells Noah, tossing a supply bag his way, “what's her story?”

“Why'd you ask?” Noah asks.

“No reason,” Tara teases.

“M-hm...”

Tara scoffs at him. “What, it's an innocent question!” She grabs him. “Don't make me hurt you.”

Maggie laughs at them. I check through a rifle case.

“Use this,” Maggie tells me, handing me a homemade silencer. It’s made from the end of an aluminium baseball bat. “It was Carl’s.”

“Whoa...”

Aiden’s saying goodbye to his parents.

Maggie asks me, “Carl not coming to say goodbye?”

I shake my head. “He doesn’t like goodbyes. Plus, I thought I’d let him sleep in.”

“That everything?” Glenn asks us all. We all nod or something similar. Glenn and Maggie kiss, then goes to talk to Deanna and Reg. I climb into the truck with Noah, Tara and Nicholas.

“Daylight’s burning — let's go,” Aiden yells from the driver’s door. Glenn gets in the truck with us. The engine starts. Eugene gets in, too, looking mortified. Maggie watches from outside.

“Seriously, though, about Nell,” Tara asks, “what's her story?”

Noah looks exhausted, shaking his head and twisting his own silencer onto his gun. Then, suddenly, music blasts from the stereo. I’m so used to it that I don't even flinch — just put my hands to my ears and sigh.

“Great!” Noah shouts. “Another mix.”

Tara throws her hands up. Glenn laughs. I can hear through my palms the dubstep and the female, British voice saying things like: _‘Is she hotter than me? Would you fuck me? Are you gay?’_ and _‘You blocked me on Facebook and now you're going to die.’_

“Helps draw them away!” Glenn shouts, always trying to find the silver lining. Grinning, I sit back on the space of truck floor beside Tara, watching Alexandria disappear through the back window.

 “Hold this a sec?” Noah tells me at some point later, pushing his notebook into my chest while he rummages through one of the supply bags.

“I'm gonna snoop,” I say, and either Noah doesn't hear or he doesn't care, so I flip open his notebook and read the first page. There are just four words: _“This is the beginning...”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was Internet Friends by Knife Party. Also, I don't really believe in horoscopes but I still think Carl fits a total Aires steriotype lol. Coincidently I think Oliver fits his Lebra one too. I hate myself. 
> 
> Happy reading.


	74. Season 5 ~ Spend, Part 2: Falling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First centred bit is Carl, rest is Ollie.

“I think my dad’s seeing someone.”

“Who?”

“I can’t tell anyone.”

“Okay.”

“Erm... Where’s Nell?”

“Walking Bean, I guess. Do you want some eggs? I’m good at eggs.”

“I ate already, thanks, Enid — wait, where’d you find eggs?”

“Outside.”

“Oh... Right...”

“Someone broke the owl sculpture.”

“Yeah. I know. I saw.”

“You saw?”

“My dad was talking to Jessie about it this morning. I heard them.”

“You were listening?”

“No. Yes.”

“So... it’s Jessie, who you think your dad is having an affair with?”

“Yes...”

“I won’t tell.”

“Thank you.”

“Sam did it — he broke the owl sculpture.”

“Why?”

“He’s angry.”

“Why?”

“I can’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t tell...”

“I know, but I can’t tell.”

“Okay... Hey. Are Nell and Noah together? They’re spending a lot of time together lately.”

“No. Not like that. She’s asexual.”

“What?”

 “Like slugs.”

“What?!”

“Kidding. She just isn’t into anybody. Ever. Not like that.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Still got your cards?”

“Yeah.”

“Play?”

“Yeah.”

* * *

 

There are two buildings conjoined by a chain link fence that stretch around the whole compound. Glenn suggests we do a perimeter check, in case things go south. Tara and Eugene check the right side of the building. Glenn and Noah, the left. Me, Aiden and Nicholas, the middle.

“You're letting that punk take charge,” Nicholas warns.

“They know what they're doing,” Aiden says under his breath. I can see the fence ahead. “Doesn’t help to get a little help.”

Nicholas glances back at me like he doesn’t want me here.

“Sending a damned kid out here,” he grumbles.

Aiden sighs. Nicholas fiddles with the mesh gate. There’s a courtyard ahead, which might be somewhere we can leave through if we have to. It’s locked, so they’re going to turn back but I climb over and unlock it from the other side.

Aiden nods to me. He’s a lot nicer to me lately. He even acknowledges my real age now. We check the courtyard, find nothing but another fence, with the front of the warehouse area in view, filled with walkers.

“Not getting out the front...”

* * *

 

We gather with the others by one of the warehouse back doors. Aiden opens it, shines a flashlight in — this warehouse is big and there are long, tall aisles set in rows for the length of the whole building. There could be walkers, so Glenn bangs on the wall. Aiden only waits a moment before deciding to go in anyway.

The rest of us unholster our guns and switch on our lights, then go in as well.

“Tara? Oliver?”

“Yeah.”

“You got it?”

“Got this aisle.”

As we scope through the warehouse, there are a lot of places to hide.

“Sh...” Glenn says. There’s groaning coming from somewhere. Further inside. We group up against a row of boxes. “They're stuck behind something.”

“How do you know?” Aiden whispers.

“I don't,” Glenn answers. “But they aren't here... Alright. Hey, let's go. Eyes up.”

We round a corner. My light shifts across a metal mesh fence, and a rotten face snarls from the other side. Nicholas jumps. I step closer to get a better look; Glenn, Tara, Noah, too. Eugene’s face is all twisted up. Aiden just stares. The fence jangles loudly as we attract their attention, but it’ll hold.

“Clear,” Glenn sighs.

“Clean,” Noah, too.

“You know your stuff,” Aiden says, watching the dead.

“We were out there a long time,” Tara says.

“There could be more,” Glenn tells us. “Let's get to work.”

I shine my flash-light up along a tall aisle.

“Needle in a haystack...” I whisper.

“Nah...” Noah grins. “Piece of cake.”

Tara’s light falls on Eugene. “You're up.”

Target set: Micro Inverter.

String Inverter, nope. Enecsys Single Micro Inverter, close. Power Optimizer, sounds like an energy drink. Ppt Inverter, no. Central Solar Inverter, nope.

“This one,” I hear at some point. “Here.”

He and Tara are on the aisle next over. I’m in this one on my own, and Noah and Glenn are in the next, then Aiden and Nicholas in the one after that. I rush to the shelf closest to Eugene’s voice, shine my light through, and they’re in front of me on the other side — a big box labelled _‘MICRO INVERTER’_ between us.

With her knife, Tara saws into the box. Stuffing pours out. A few pieces fling at me. I swat them away, grinning. Then there is a micro inverter in her hand and she hands it to Eugene.

“Yeah,” Eugene confirms.

“We found them,” Tara says.

“Guys,” I whisper, beckoning Glenn and Noah over.

“Alright, Eugene!” Glenn whispers. Tara starts to stock them in her and Eugene's packs. She hands me some, too, which I stuff in Noah’s backpack. “Oliver, go get the guys. Need Aiden's supply bag.”

I go and find them. Ahead, at the far end of the warehouse, is a door. I watch it swing closed, and on the floor, I see a wobbly shadow shamble along Aiden and Nicholas’ aisle.

“Oh, shit...”

I take out my knife, soften my steps. Aiden and Nicholas' flash-lights bob as they look around, and when I turn the aisle to see them, I find the walker the shadow belongs to. Still a few hundred yards behind them. They haven't noticed it. I aim my torch behind me and creep after it. It's got armour on: a helmet and a bullet-proof vest. Military?

I grab the base of its helmet and push, and then, in one move, I sink my knife through brain stem and cervical vertebra. The corpse falls to the floor. I look up, wiping off my blade — Aiden and Nicholas are aiming at me.

“Porca puttana!” I gasp. “Holy shit, don’t shoot me!” My flash-light clatters to the floor and I scramble for it, shine it my face like a police light. They both lower their weapons.

“Jesus,” Aiden sighs.

“Dammit, kid!” Nicholas hisses. “What the hell is the matter with you?!”

I sigh. “ _Mi stai rompendo le palle._ ”

Nicholas looks furious. Glad, I crouch and root through the walker’s uniform. Military guys usually have something interesting on them. Once, with Pat on the road, I found a letter on one soldier’s body. It read:

_To my love...  
See you in hell._

Patrick said he’d found a new hero.

“Whoa...” I find something. “Cool.”

“What?” Aiden asks.

“Hand-grenade.” I stare at the small explosive attached to its torso and the first thought that pops into my head is: _I want to keep it_. The second, more rational voice says: _Bad idea. Your hands are not good hands._ I then look up to the guys, thinking: _Theirs aren’t exactly better hands than mine._

“Lucky nobody shot at it,” I say. “Could've blown this whole place up.”

Nicholas narrows his eyes at me. “We would’ve seen it.”

I don’t say anything. Not saying anything pisses him off more than the Italian. I wonder what would happen if I started wearing a kippah. I tell them, “I came to say we found the micro-inverters. Need your bags.”

Nicholas marches past. Aiden follows him. We collect all the inverters we can carry, then take our leave and head for the back door.

“The beginning?” I ask Noah.

He looks up to me, the edge of a sandwich bag held in his teeth while he adjusts his rifle. The bag has some of Carol's cookies inside. “Huh?”

“Your notebook.” I take a cookie, bite. “It says: _“This is the beginning...”_ The beginning of what?”

“You snooped?”

“Said I would.”

“When?”

“In the truck. You just didn’t hear me.”

“Sneaky asshole.”

I laugh.

Noah tosses Glenn the bag through a shelf. He salutes him.

“So,” I say, “what does it mean?”

Noah turns to me.

“Well, Oliver De Luca,” he says dramatically, slinging an arm over my shoulder like some patronising big brother. He takes a bite of his cookie and makes a grand gesture around us. “This...”

“This?”

“Yes, this,” Noah repeats. “This is the beginning of everything.”

I give him a look. “Are you high? Because I know what high looks like.”

“High on life.”

“You're such an optimist, man.”

“Nah, you're just not enough of one.”

“No,” I say. “I'm a realist.”

“You pronounced neurotic weirdo wrong. But don't worry... we love you anyway.”

“True that!” Tara says.

Glenn grins down at his shoes.

I laugh and blush, and then, under my breath, mumble, “Love you all, too,” which is something I’ve never told them before, and it feels good, but only for a moment. Because then that moment ends because of an unlocked door.

I’m not sure I like being a realist.

Reality is crushing.

Nobody noticed the stray walker wonder in behind us, maybe from the same place that armoured walker came in. Shuffling feet. Noah and I are still grinning while we turn around and look. But it’s too late. It reaches through the shelf and grabs Nicholas’s shirt. Aiden takes it out from behind, quickly, but the walker isn’t the only thing that falls. We can’t do anything. The aisle tips. I just watch.

“GUYS, LOOK OUT!”

“Oh no.”

“WHOA – WHOA – WHOA!”

“GET BACK!”

A crunch, a grind, then quiet.

“Oh...”

It’s stopped against the next aisle. We all stare. And then I bust out laughing. Noah starts next, then Tara, and I laugh harder because her laugh is my favourite thing in the world.

“Jesus,” Glenn says. “That could have been worse.”

“You’re one lucky son of a bitch,” Noah tells Nicholas.

“Guys.”

“Scared the crap out of me.”

“Guys...”

“The aisles must be pretty tough—”

“Guys!” I yell again, stepping across the aisle to the next. I point up. “The box. Top shelf.” It’s slipping. Slipping over the edge.

“Easy,” Glenn is telling it. “ _Easy..._ ”

I look at where it’ll land. The walker. The walker with the armour. And then the box is falling. Landing. Crack. At the impact, the small grenade pops away from its strap and rolls across the floor. I’m closest, so I see it. No. I don’t see it.

“The pin.”

“The what?”

I look up at Tara, who’d asked. _Run! Run!_ The screams are inside of me but I don’t know if I have any time to get them out. _Run!_

There’s a flash of white, and the noise comes a million years later. I think everything isn’t real. Everything. Just a nightmare I made up in my head. Except the world is shaking. Ending. Something hard hits me, swallows me. Heavy. A crunch. Me? Noah disappears. The floor is twisting under my face and feet. The whole world sounds like an earthquake. All around me. I think of that old movie. _Order of the Phoenix._ Harry and his friends inside the Ministry of Magic escaping the Death Eaters. Row after row of prophets collapsing and falling falling falling down around them. I’m a realist. I’m a realist. Real life is crushing. Real. Life. Is. Crushing... _me._ No charms. No incantations. The agony is a train at full speed smearing me across the country. And it still occurs to me as odd that the first thought before I die is wondering what it's like to be blown up. Does it last this long? Will I stop feeling it soon? Will it stop hurting? When will the world stop thrashing in and out of itself around me? I'm thinking of Carl, and Carol, and Penelope. I’m so guilty. I’m so sorry. I’m so angry. Someone is yelling. The crashing and banging and falling has stopped but the world is still made of dust and blood and my body is still mangled up like road kill.

I don’t think I’m me anymore.

I think I’m just a pair of lungs.

I try to move, and I start crying when I can. Not blown up. God. I’m not blown up. I wiggle my toes and fingers and cry so hard I run out of air. Grunting. Coughing — not me.

“Oh God,” Nicholas. “Oh God.”

I must black out for a few seconds. I think I’ve blacked out several times in the last few minutes. I think I’ve been here for days. No. No. Nicholas. _Nicholas!_ My lungs fill with dust and my breath leaves me wheezy and rough and impossible. I think I black out again because the next thing I hear is, “Oliver, where are you!?”

“We gotta find him!”

“What if there’s nothing left to find?”

“Shut up!” Noah yells. "No, he got out of the way."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, he grabbed me. Shoved me away from the explosion."

"He was standing right next to it."

"Kid’s fast."

“Oliver! _Oliver!_ ”

Gone. I’m not now. I’m just. Something is digging into my back. Dig. Dig. Dig. I cry out when it crushes me sideways.

“Oliver!” They’re still yelling. “Tara! Eugene!”

“Aiden...”

 “Guys!”

“Help him!”

“He's trapped.”

“Help me get him out!” Aiden says.

I realise they’re talking about me. Something is creaking. I can’t breathe. The thing on my back is moving and I scream and my whole life is pain. It lasts forever. It lasts forever. Until it’s gone, suddenly.

. . . .

I’m laid on my back. That’s all I know next. Someone is touching my face. Crushing my chest. I can taste blood in my mouth. Someone’s mouth is on my mouth. Someone’s air is in my lungs. I splutter.

“Oliver!”

“Stay in the room. Stay with me. You got this.”

Glenn stops performing CRP on me. _CRP._ That’s for when people stop breathing.

“Today’s a real rompicoglioni, huh?” I croak out.

Someone laughs. Someone else calls me a son of a bitch. I look up. Aiden stands over me, grinning. Nicholas is pacing with his head in his hands.

“Can you move?”

I look at Glenn and smile. I love his eyes. Jesus, Glenn kissed me. No. He CPR’d me. Same thing? I giggle, then cough... violently. I’m falling out of me again.

“Oliver, no, no, stay awake.”

My left side stings. I’m bleeding. My shirt is wet. I think I’m crying.

“Please don’t tell Carl about this,” I beg. “I don’t want him to know I died.”

“Oliver, focus,” I’m told. “Try to move.”

Oh no. I think of Nell’s sister, Drippy. Paralysed from the neck down. They’ll wait for me to fall asleep and then...

“You didn’t die,” Noah is saying. “You just forgot to breathe for a while.”

“Alright, good, you’re moving your feet.”

I look at them, my feet, and laugh, except I’m coughing. I try to stand up. I do. I’m wobbly. But I manage.

“Anything broken?”

“Don’t think so,” I say, gripping Noah’s shoulder. Glenn’s arm, too. I wince. “Where’s Tara?”

“Still looking for her,” Glenn says, walking ahead and pointing into a dust cloud behind us. I see shuffling shapes. “Come on. Cage is open. They’re getting out. We need to find—”

“Here!”

We go. I hold on to Noah for a while until I trust myself not to collapse. My Glock is heavy in my hand. I grip it tight. Rush, rush, rush. Walkers are behind and growling. The aisles have collapsed in odd positions. Some shelves further away didn’t fall at all but instead swivelled around on themselves in sections. And some were so blown to pieces there are shards everywhere.

The aisles around Eugene and Tara are still standing. We’re blocked off from here. They're trapped. I see Eugene first, stood trembling, and across from him, Tara. She’s out cold. Under a shelf. Bleeding from the crack in her skull.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy reading.


	75. Season 5 ~ Spend, Part 3: & Now You're Going to Die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few centred bits in Carl's pov, his thoughts in italics. The rest is a very stressed Oliver.

“Is she breathing?” Glenn asks. “Eugene?”

“I... can't tell from right here.”

“Then fucking go check on her!” I yell.

“They're getting close!” Nicholas warns.

Eugene doesn’t move.

“Screw this...” I shove a cardboard box from the shelf, then another. “Aiden, take these.”

“Yeah.”

“Walker!”

“Eugene, it's yours,” Glenn instructs, “take it out.”

He’s aiming but another one grabs him from behind. I curse — the bottom shelf is empty and I fling myself through to Tara’s side. The first walker is ahead. I yank it back and sink Lizzie’s knife through its eyeball. Eugene is screaming but I can’t see him past the wall of crates between us. Then Glenn is here, on Eugene’s side. I hear a scuffle and then he, Noah and Glenn are standing up and staring at me over the barrier of crates.

“Tara,” I grunt, “wake up, please?”

“Careful. Can you lift her?”

I try. Curse. “I’m not strong enough.”

Glenn disappears.

“Guys, get to that office!” he orders. “Oliver and I'll get Tara. Go!” Suddenly he’s here. “Is she breathing? Oh, Jesus. That’s a lot of blood... Come on. Her shoulder. Support her head.” And then we’ve drug her through the opening in the shelf I made and are carrying her across the warehouse into the shipping office. The door slams. We lay her on a table Aiden pulls out for us. Eugene examines her. Blood’s already spilling onto the floor.

“How's she doing?” Glenn asks.

“She has serious head trauma. She’s losing blood fast.”

“How do we stop it?” Noah asks.

“Med-kit,” I mutter. “Aiden?”

When I turn to him, he's empty handed.

“Well, where is it?” Noah asks him.

“Your pack, man,” Glenn insists.

“Dropped it...”

“Or it got blown to hell,” Nicholas says.

“There's another one in the van,” Glenn says.

“She's on her way out,” Eugene explains. “We need to get her there.”

“Alright, we will,” Glenn assures.

I take my inhaler.

“We left the batteries out there, too,” Aiden says.

“You’re worried about those?” Nicholas hiss at him.

“They're right there, I can see them,” Aiden argues.

“Eugene, we got that kinda time?” Noah asks.

“No!” Glenn says. “Aiden, this isn’t about your trophies. Tara’s priority right now.”

Aiden looks like he’ll back down, but that is when he rams at the door and flies out of the office. Glenn’s almost fast enough to grab him, but walkers are right outside and he slams the door shut again before they get in. We all panic for a second.

“Is he crazy?”

“Oh my God.”

“Jesus.”

“We gotta go. He’s gonna get himself killed.”

“If we go out there after him he’ll get us killed!”

“So you’re saying we leave him?”

“Go, get him,” Eugene yells. He’s shaking, putting pressure on Tara’s head with a torn bit of clothing — already soaked red. “She'd do it. I know she would. I'll stay with her. I'll keep her safe, I assure you. I will.”

“Alright,” Glenn growls, “we'll knock 'em back.” He points at Nicholas. “You still have that flair?”

“Yeah.”

“'Kay, you fire the flare over the shelves.” Glenn looks pissed. “It'll draw some of them over. Alright. We're gonna hit the rest hand-to-hand. You ready?”

We all nod.

“Alright, one, two, three!”

* * *

 

_His hands in my hair. Mine around his waist. Mouths crushing. Eyes shut. Bodies pulled close — the photograph is propped against the bedside, totally beautiful even though I’m in it. I don’t look at the me part, though. I look at the him part._

“Hello? Someone there?”

“Ack!”

“Hello?”

_I didn’t even know Carol was home._

“Sam... what are you doing in there?”

“I didn't tell anybody about the guns. I swear to God.”

“Answer my question.”

“Do you have any more cookies? The ones you made for the party? Oliver said you'd make more for me.”

“They're gone. Now go.”

“I... I know he's on a run and all, but... I thought you and I could make some?”

“Go home.”

“My house doesn't have power! And I was going to paint my owl statue but somebody broke it.”

“None of these are problems, Sam. I don't care about your house. I don't care about your statue. Now get out.”

“Can you make more cookies?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don't want to.”

“Maybe if you showed me how to make them, I could do it myself.”

_There’s nowhere to leave. I already broke Oliver’s window earlier. I can snoop through Dad’s things if I’m quiet enough, if Sam and Carol keep talking._

“You want cookies? Alright. You’re gonna have to steal the chocolate from Olivia. And then you’re gonna get some extra bars for me and Oliver. If you get caught or you say anything, you're not gonna like what happens to you, now go.”

_I find some unopened condom packets. They can’t be his. Who is Dad having sex with? I don’t know. Maybe there are a lot of things I don’t know about my dad. Maybe I don’t know him at all, and there are just things he’ll never tell me, or explain to me, like how he can tear a man’s throat out but he can’t let me eat dog food when I’m starving, or why he can kiss someone else’s wife but will fight his own best friend for sleeping with my mom._

_I’m getting mad again._

“You’re stealing condoms?”

_Crap. Didn’t hear her come up._

“You’re stealing chocolate?”

“Don’t tell Oliver.”

“Don’t tell Dad.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

* * *

 

Aiden is knelt under an aisle, reaching across for his pack.v“Come on, come on...”

“Aiden!”

“Almost got it!”

“Shh!”

“The flare,” Noah hisses, “it's burning out!”

“Hurry, man,” I say, and then I hear creaking, see the metal beam directly above Aiden’s head, and it's slipping, bending to its weight. “Aiden, move!”

It happens too fast. The heavy metal collapses. I think I shut my eyes because I don't see it happen. But I hear it. I hear the crunch. The clang. The screaming. My ears rattle. My brain rings. I cover my face like a child and shudder. When I peek through my fingers, Aiden’s whole right arm is crushed. I see bone sticking out in two places from his elbow and wrist. His hand is flat and twisted, bent at the wrong angle.

“Oh, God.”

Things start to blur. The next thing I’m fully aware of is the immense weight under my hands while I help Nicholas and Glenn try to lift the aisle. It won’t budge. Aiden is still screaming.

“Guys!” Noah urges, shooting into the walkers. “I'm almost out!”

Glenn’s nodding so I break away and shoot, too. I run out of ammo quickly and reload. Walkers are spawning at random like the trolls in Ron's videogames — they’ll freak me out and I’ll have to let someone else play, unlike now, when I take a walker out under my boot.

“Come on — again.”

“We're not gonna make this.”

“Hey. Nicholas. Yes, we will. But I need your help. You can do this.”

“Don't leave me.”

“Okay, okay.”

We keep shooting. Noah runs out of bullets. He shoves the empty pistol into his holster and switches to his rifle. The shots from it shake through the whole warehouse, their sheer power collapsing more aisles. Keep shooting.

“You left them,” Nicholas mutters into Aiden's ear. “We both did. That's who we are. I'm sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

I don’t know what’s happening. Nicholas is running. Glenn is staring, lost.

“They're coming!” Noah growls.

Shoot.

Aiden is talking but it’s hard to hear him: “It was us. The others, before. They didn't panic. We did. It was us.”

Shoot. Shoot.

Glenn tries again to pull, but Aiden stops him. “No.”

Shoot — _click._ I curse. The walkers are right on top of us. In one moment, I holster my gun, yell, “Glenn, pull!” and then the aisle is under my palms and I’m pulling with everything I have. Noah, too, and Glenn. We pull and pull. Pull so hard my body splits in two. And then Aiden is free.

“ _They're here!_ ”

There’s a hard yank on my collar and my throat shuts. I see Glenn and Aiden running, and the walkers following us like a flood, but Noah pulls me back, drags me across the warehouse, and we all run for our lives.

* * *

 

“Hey, Rick. Just havin' a beer. Thought I'd bring you one, for helping my wife today.”

_I'm not sure what it is between today and me spending so much of it listening in on conversations I have no part in._

“I’m good, Pete, but... thanks.”

“Ah, c'mon. Don't tell me you're still on duty.”

“Kinda always am, you know?”

“Well, not at Deanna's party. I saw you. You had some, right?”

“I... wish I could’ve helped out more, today. I asked around, but nobody saw or heard anything.”

“Well, it was just an owl. Grand scheme of things, I think we'll live.”

“Yeah...”

“I'm sorry. Heard you lost your wife... You know, I'm sure it looks like we haven't lost much, but we have. Other things, we're just fighting like hell to hold on to. With everything you people've been through, I don't know if you see that.”

“We do.”

“Bring your kids in for a check-up! I know I offered you one, but they really should come in. They were out there a while, right?”

“Yeah—”

“And your boy — which's your son again?”

“Carl.”

“The uh... under-bite.”

“Oliver.”

“Oliver. Right. Your son?”

“No... Carl's my son. Oliver's Carol's boy — adopted. Carl's boyfriend.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“Bring them in. Never know what they could’ve picked up. Boys can be stupid. Especially boys like them.”

“Excuse me?”

“Oliver — he's got asthma, right?”

“Yes. He does.”

“We're comin' into summer soon, and the pollen's gonna get pretty bad. Can’t let it get out of control.”

“I’m grateful...”

“Let's be friends, man... we kinda have to be, right?”

“Yeah, we do.”

“So we will. I'll see you, Rick.”

_It’s strange, for a moment, to watch him while he thinks he’s alone, while he’s far away in his own head. He still touches his wedding ring._

“Dad?”

“Oh. Hey. Didn’t know you were up there.”

“Heard someone leave.”

“Was Pete.”

_I know._

“What did he want?”

“Carl...”

“Yeah.”

“Are you being safe?”

“What?”

“You. You and Oliver... Carl... are you and Oliver being safe?”

“Are you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I didn’t pick anything up out there, not from him. We’re not being stupid. So just drop it.”

“Who do you think you are?!”

_Who do you think you are? Who even are you?!_

“We’re being safe, Dad.”

“Good.”

“I have to go to school.”

* * *

 

We're stuck in a revolving door. Noah and Glenn in one section. Nicholas, Aiden and I in the section opposite. We're cut off from either way out — walkers blocking us. In the lobby. In the parking lot. The five of us work desperately to hold the door still.

“Maybe we can shoot our way past them!” Nicholas yells. He'd dropped his rifle outside. Aiden, too. “You guys still have guns!”

“You have the ammo!” Glenn shouts. “Oliver?”

I grab Nicholas' pack and root every pocket. “No,” I mutter, sweating. “Shells. They're the wrong rounds! I can’t get them through to you!”

Aiden collapses and I have to help pick him up. He’s bleeding bad, is whole arm swollen and mangled.

“We gotta do somethin', man!” Nicholas begs. “We're gonna die in here!”

“There has to be another way,” Noah says. “There has to be a way.”

I think of Tara and Eugene, still inside. “We have to go back for the others.”

“Are you crazy, kid?” Nicholas yells.

I yell back, “ _No one gets left behind!_ ”

“Look around you!”

“Shut the fuck up!” Aiden shouts, clutching his arm. “This is on all of us! Fighting's not gonna help!”

For a moment, no one says anything. Exhaustion burns my body keeping the door from spinning.

BEEP-BEEP!  
BEEP!  
BEEP-BEEP!

“Hey!” Eugene, outside in the parking lot, drives the eagle truck by, an arm banging on the outside. The electronic dub-step is loud and terrible. “Hey! Over here, come get me! Come get me!”

BEEP!

_‘And now you're going to die.’_

BEEP!

“Come on!” The walkers follow. “Come on! Come and get me!”

_‘And now you're going to die.’_

“Ha! Come on, Eugene! Yeah.” Glenn cheers. I laugh. I also throw up in my mouth. “Alright,” Glenn pants. “Hey, I need you all to — hey, Nicholas! I need you four to keep the door steady, alright? I'm gonna break the glass! We get out. You three push out. We get the rifle and we're good! Right? Right?!”

I nod, breathless and shaking. Aiden and Nicholas are nodding, too.

“Ready?!”

“Yeah!”

“Go!”

Glenn bashes the butt of his rifle against his glass. Again. Again. The door jolts. My feet slip. Aiden hits the floor again. Nicholas starts screaming. “No! No, stop, it’s not safe!”

“Nicholas,” I shout, “come on. Push!”

“This is the only way!” Glenn shouts.

“No!” Nicholas cries. “It's not gonna break!”

“It will,” Noah insists. “We can hold it. We can!”

I push my forehead into the glass, growling.

“Trust me, okay?” Glenn yells. “Count of three, count of three. One! Two! Thr—”

One second... I and everyone else misses it. The revolving door is open and people are screaming and then Nicholas is outside... and it's over.

The door is open. And then something grabs me. My hair is yanked. Growls are in my ears. And Aiden is fast. He grabs my middle and pulls me back, and I think we're safe, but I’m wrong. He jolts backwards away from me.

The last thing you see before you die is your whole life flashing before your eyes. I didn’t realise it works the same way if you’re looking into someone else’s eyes while it happens, that they see it, too. Because I do. I see Aiden’s whole life. I see him losing his first tooth and riding his first bike. I see Deanna making him and Spenser breakfast and Reg yelling at him after he broke a vase. I see Aiden and Spencer fighting over videogames. I see him driving down a dirt track listening to loud music with his friends, and working in the ROTC and almost getting that lieutenant’s commission. I see his evacuation with his family, and setting up home in Alexandria...

“Don’t let go of me.”

...and then I see him die.

He slips through the revolving door, just like that, and the walkers tear him apart —“AIDEN!”— I try to go after him but the door snaps shut. I scream and scream and scream. Glenn and Noah are shouting. It is slow... and stretched... and Aiden is pinned up against the glass. I stagger backwards, watch — the bites come down and down and down, and he screams so loud, until he can’t scream anymore because he drowns in his own blood, pouring under the bristles at the bottom of the door, soaking my clothes.

When the revolving door starts moving, I don’t do anything. Someone is shouting at me. I’m being pushed, served up like a meal.

“OLIVER!”

Something jams the door.

“OLIVER, GET UP!” Glenn sounds so angry I startle and look at him. “Oliver, you gotta listen to me! We're gonna get out of this! But we gotta do it fast — while they're distracted.”

I nod, forcing myself to my feet, dripping with blood.

“Okay, good!”

“You can do this, man!”

“We're not losing you, too!”

“I can't breathe,” I try to say.

“We'll push this way, let you get out first!” Glenn says.

“Your side’s already open.”

“Shit. Alright...” he says. I don't look at him but I can hear him crying. “When we get out we're gonna help you, Oliver. We're gonna get you out of there! Alright?”

“Oliver, you got this!” Noah shouts. “Oliver! You'll be okay!”

“Alright, count to three!” Glenn's voice is shaking. “One. Two. _Three!_ ”

The door pushes a lot easier than before with the thirty less bodies shoved against it this side. Parts of Aiden are being thrown around like fodder. Glenn and Noah's escape. I try to catch my breath. The gap in my side of the door is huge. I could just step through, give myself over. Would that make it easier?

“Oliver!” I stand there like a statue inside the revolving door, suffocating. “Oliver, you gotta push now!”

I stumble to the other side of the door. Glenn and Noah help from the outside. A walker pushes in behind me at the last moment before the door shuts, and another one tries to follow it, but is cut off from the waist down.

“Oliver! Take them out!” Glenn shouts. “Almost got it!”

My arms burn. I’ve got my knife in my hand. When the walker lunges, I knock it away. Hair swings around her face. She comes after me and I choke. The floor hits me hard and wet. I drop my knife, cry out, hold her back. My knife. _My knife!_

“OLIVER—NO!”

Something had slipped out of my mind. Only for a moment. One second. But that is all it takes. The other walker. The one torn in two. It’s right next to me. It’s right here. I watch it happen. I watch it happen. As I reach for my knife, almost take it, my arm is grabbed...

_no_

...and teeth sink into my right hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oliver's fine... pffft.
> 
> LONG LIVE NOAH! I had to save him. I made my decision the moment he told Glenn not to let go. Really enjoying the whole quest to snoop on Rick that Carl has going on.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	76. Season 5 ~ Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Small centred bit in Oliver’s head first, the rest is Carl.

“Oliver.”

“Oh, God, his arm!”

“Noah, get his machete.”

“It won’t work. It didn’t with—”

“ _Now!_ It has to be now! Do it! One clean cut! Now!”

_...shlink..._

* * *

 

After school, we stand around talking — “Tobin's resigning?” “Abraham’s taking over as construction manager.” “Where’s Enid?” “Snuck out.” “Oh.” “What's in your pocket?”

I pull out a few condom wrappers and my deck of cards.

“What's in yours?” I ask once she’s done laughing; I don't really expect her to have anything, but she pulls out a packet of cigarettes, careful Ron, who’s talking with Mikey, doesn’t see it.

“They're Jessie's,” she says.

“You stole them?”

“Ron stole them,” she whispers. “She doesn't know he knows about them. He doesn’t know that I know, too, and that I’m going to return them without either of them knowing anything at all.”

“Ron'll find something else.”

“Yeah.”

We watch him and Mikey bicker over pacifism for a minute.

Finally, I ask, “Want some?”

She looks at the condoms. “Did you know that I’m asexual?”

“Yes,” I say. “You don’t need to have sex to own condoms.”

“Is that what you do? Own them and not have sex.”

“No. I just stole them. And I won’t return them.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

I hand some to her, along with an ace of spades. “Ace,” I say. “You know, because it’s a pun?”

She laughs. “Got it.”

Then my dad shows up, his face pale and gaunt and sweaty, saying my name, saying something about the infirmary. There’s blood on his hands. I don’t remember running across the community. I don’t remember my father running along behind me. The next thing I know is that we’re standing outside the clinic and Deanna and Reg are knelt on the ground wailing. The eagle truck is parked on the curb, muddy skid marks in the grass verge and the back wide open and when I look inside there’s so much blood its dripping over the side. The blood trails all the way to the clinic door and steps, smudged and splattered and Nicholas is standing in the street, covered in it and dust and bruises.

Ron, Mikey and Penelope followed us. She is saying Noah’s name. He is saying Oliver’s. And I say, “Is he okay?” And I say, “What happened?” And I ask, “Is he inside?”

Enid is standing back, across the street. I hear her voice, all shaky and far away, “His hand—”

Someone says, “Carl...”

Another person says, “He was bit.”

“We were out there and he was bit.”

Dad grips my forearm.

“Let go,” I say, very calmly, “please could you let go of me.”

Inside: “Shh, sweetie. Pete, help him!” “We have two patients! Let me work on her skull. You focus on cauterising!” “Dammit, _Denise_ , is it hot enough yet? He's losing too much blood.” “Almost! We've only got the backup emergency generators. It's only just starting up.” “Eugene's working on the inverter exchanges.” “Hurry up!” “We’re doing the best we can!”

Dad blocks me. I’m yelling in his face and he’s pulling me away and I cling to him and cry. Listen to me. Listen to me, Carl. I look at his eyes. It’s strange to look into a pair of eyes you’ve spent your whole life growing up growing into. Listen to me now, son.

“Denise, you need to control the bleeding!” “Alright! Alright. It's done.” “Oliver, you gotta put this in your mouth now.” His whimpering. “Here, here.” “Shh.” “Hold him.” “Just do it!” Sizzling. Screaming.

“Stop,” I say, “stop, please, you’re hurting him.” Nobody hears me. I’m sobbing into my hands. “Why are they—”

 “We chopped it,” Noah says somewhere in the chaos.

“He's gonna turn,” Penelope says anyway.

More sizzling, screaming. I can smell it. I collapse against the wall and throw up into my hands. I look at it. I think I try to apologise, but I throw up again and it all splatters across the deck. Dad holds me, tells me to breathe, wipes my face and hands with a cloth. Enid is staring at me, fresh eggs in her hand.

* * *

 

I wait around outside the infirmary all day and for most of the night while Oliver sleeps, handcuffed by the wrist and both ankles to the infirmary bed. I don’t get to see him once. Tara either. Pete says the swelling in her brain has stopped and now we just have to wait — wait, wait... wait.

Eventually, Rosita catches me passing out late at night, and convinces me to go home. I lie in my bed and twirl Lizzie's knife in my hand — Oliver dropped it back at the warehouse, but Noah was able to grab it. I’ll keep it safe until I can return it. The handle is wearing. I trace every scratch or nick in the blade with my fingernail.

“We’ve been monitoring him all day,” Rosita says, outside on the porch. Dad and Carol are out there, too.

“So, he's not infected?”

“He's not infected,” she confirms. “He woke up a little ago. I gave him something to eat, and drink. Gave him more meds. You can go see him. Carl, too.”

“He only just got to bed,” Dad says. “First time he's slept yet.”

I'm already getting dressed.

“What happened to him?” Carol asks. “Did he tell you?”

“Glenn and Noah told me,” Dad says.

“I know,” Carol says. “But what did Oliver say?”

Rosita takes a second to answer. “Look, I asked okay? But... Oliver couldn't tell me. He can't speak... I checked his throat. There’s a lot of strain there. His larynx is inflamed, badly, and he's gonna be pretty sore for a few days, week maybe... maybe more.”

“How?” Dad asks.

“Happens when you use your voice too much,” Rosita answers. “Happens a lot with singers after concerts.”

I hear Carol make a noise.

“How’s he going to get through this,” Dad says. “How’s he going to use a gun, or a knife? How will he protect himself?”

“He’s gotta learn it all again,” Carol says.

“He's in pain,” Rosita says. “He'll need a while before PT starts — physical therapy, rehabilitation; strength exercises, motor activities. It’ll help get him used to doing things he should be able to do, get him using his left hand... He needs time to accept this.”

“He will,” Dad says.

“He will,” Carol says too.

They stop talking when I step out onto the porch. I walk up to Rosita and hug her. She asks how I’m doing and I ask, “How do we help him?”

Rosita sighs. “His arm will heal on its own, few months. When the inflammation in his throat’s gone down, we'll see how he does trying to talk. The pain'll go, eventually. We just have to wait. He'll come around.”

Dad is nodding to me.

I push my hat over my head and leave.

* * *

 

Inside the clinic, Oliver watches me walk over to him. Pete is across the room, looking annoyed while he sits at his desk reading through something. I stand before Oliver’s bed and look at him.

His arm is all wrapped up and in a sling, stopping just too short to not be hiding a fist inside. I flinch. He tries to speak but I tell him not to. I wipe my face. I sit next to him, not looking at anything but my knees, hands on them, held tight.

“I'm glad you're okay,” I say. I try again: “I’m glad you’re alive.”

He’s crying. I tell him to stop, but he can’t, and I know not to say anything else. Even after he stops crying. I just sit with him. I reach out and hold his hand. I stay for a long time. Long enough for Denise to take over Pete’s watch. She looks less annoyed than him. Terrified, really. Oliver starts crying again. I don’t tell him to stop because I’m crying too. Finally, the crying stops, and he falls asleep first or I do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy reading.


	77. Season 5 ~ Try, Part 1: La Mia Anima Gemella

Carl is still here the next morning, but leaves when he needs to get food and look after Judith. Rosita gives me a check-up. My throat hurts too much to talk or use my inhaler much. Even drinking water is hard, and swallow six different pills is almost impossible.

“Any numbness?”

Shrug.

“Pain?”

Nod.

“Itching?”

Shrug.

Rosita sighs. “Can you try to talk?”

Shrug. Headshake. She presses her fingers to my Adam’s apple and I flinch. She looks inside my mouth, pressing a thin piece of wood to my tongue to hold it down, and after a few minutes of this, she sits back and sighs again, crossing her arms.

Across the room, Tara is still under, hooked up to a machine that beeps is she stops breathing or worse — luckily it hasn’t made a sound yet.

I think I’ve decided to spend the rest of my life frowning.

Nothing changes for a few days after that. Then finally I’m allowed to leave the infirmary. Gabriel is hosting a funeral service for Aiden, but I’m too drowsy from my meds to go, so I stay in bed all day, and later, in the evening, people keep trying to fuss over me so I decide to go for a walk.

“Are you sure?” Noah asks.

“Yes.”

“But... are you sure?” Rick seconds.

“I lost my hand. Not my legs. Now, can I go?”

“Go...”

I do. Carl doesn’t ask to come with me and I’m glad. It’s too late to go outside Alexandria; plus, I’d never make it up the wall without my hand. I walk to the church instead, figuring it’s funny that the place I usually like least in Alexandria is suddenly the place I find the least threatening.

Nobody’s here, except Gabriel, which I realise I was hoping for. He’s sitting in a chair, facing his homemade alter. He turns when he hears me come in. He doesn’t speak. I sit beside him.

“I’m glad you are healing well,” he tells me.

I say nothing. Don’t even look at him. Just my cast and bandage.

“Would you like some macaroni and cheese?” he asks me. I nod, glance at him, nod again. “I’ll prepare you some.”

He’s gone for a few minutes, gathering the ingredients from the pantry, and in around twenty minutes Gabriel is done at the stove and serving up with a spoon. He pulls up another chair for me to put my bowl on, since I can’t hold it and use my spoon.

I mouth thank you to him. Gabriel smiles. He holds up a finger and makes a quiet, “Ah,” noise, then turns around and goes to the ingredients he brought. He comes back with a small dried leaf, and places it on each of our macaroni bowls.

“For flavour,” he says, “and a symbol of peace.”

I look at it.

“During the great flood,” Gabriel explains, “the dove sent in search of land by Noah, returned with an olive leaf. It was a sign from God that His war on mankind had ceased. The flood was receding. Land was in sight.”

He smiles at me.

“Land is in sight, Oliver.”

With a nod, I start to eat.

* * *

 

The next day, I spend most of it doing physical therapy with Rosita. At one point, I find it so difficult and disturbing that I yack. She lets me leave by lunch. I spend some time alone, and then I spend some time with Carl. Then, in the evening, he goes back to his house for supper and I spend some more time alone.

Carol catches me heading into the shower.

“Keep the door unlocked.”

She must be able to tell that I won’t, because she says it again. “Unlocked, Oliver.”

I shower, door unlocked. I keep my arm out of the water. It’s hard to wash my left armpit, but everywhere else is easy enough. What’s hard is brushing my hair and redressing my bandage. I think Carol hears me struggling, because she knocks. Was she waiting for me?

I let her come in, wiping my face while she steps through the steam. I let her redress my arm. It’s just a big scabby mess at this point. Gruesome. Then she brushes my hair for me. She’d left the door open, so the room begins to demist and I can see our reflection in the mirror above the sink — see her focussed eyes over my shoulder, catching me with a glance and a small smile. It’s nice having my hair brushed by somebody else. Makes me feel small and looked after, even if I’d never say so.

“Stay with me,” she tells me, “help me make casserole for the Deanna’s family.”

* * *

 

I soon realise that nobody else is here. Noah’s with Nell. Daryl is on a scouting run with Aaron. Rosita and Abraham are next door, and Eugene is still working.

Carol makes the sauce while I do the pasta. Ever since Mrs. Neudermeyer started handing the stuff out by the sack-full, Carol’s been teach me. Pasta is my thing now, or it was when I had two hands — she has to carry the pot for me and use the scòla-pàsta; which Carol tells me is actually called a strainer. Really, all I can do without help is mix. She doesn’t even need me.

I sit on the island counter. Carol gives me a look. I climb off. She gives me a bar of chocolate wrapped in foil. I use my teeth to unwrap it and snap the bar against the counter top. I give her the bigger piece.

“Can I ask you something?”

I look at her, chewing.

Carol hesitates. “Did... Sam or Ron ever, uh... say anything to you, about things going on at home? With Pete? Anything... bad?”

I cross the room to stir the pasta. I think of how Ron can’t lift his arm properly anymore, and the bruises on him and Sam.

“Oliver.”

I look at Carol.

“He said something,” she says. “Sam.”

I don’t say anything or I’ll get them into trouble.

“I just… I have a feeling.”

I stir.

“You have heard something, haven't you?” she adds. “You've seen something?”

She doesn’t need me to respond. Silently, she puts the pasta and the rest of the ingredients together and puts it all in the oven. There's a battery-operated baby monitor on the island. Through it, I see Judith awake, wriggling and mumbling. Carol watches her, too.

Stiff, I stretch. Ever since the grenade explosion, when I do this, my spine pops and cracks like fireworks — even though I wasn’t blown up, I was certainly ruptured, especially on my right side; the air tried to burn me. Earlier, Carl saw it, my back, while I was getting dressed. He cried.

Carol’s got a piece of paper, trying to think what to write on it, but becomes distracted when she catches someone watching us from the window.

“Sam...”

She lets him in and the first thing he talks about is my amputation. He asks questions and talks about how cool it is and I don’t say anything.

“Oliver's gotta save his voice, Sam.”

“But how will I talk to you?” he asks me.

“I suppose you’ll just have to not talk to him,” she answers. I appreciate this. She tells him what we’re doing and he asks if he can help at all. She says no, that she just needs to think of something to write as condolence.

“What’s condolence?”

“Saying sorry. Giving respect.”

He’s quiet for a moment. “I'm not sure a casserole will help them to stop feeling sad.”

“It's the best we've got,” Carol tells him, and writes: _We're truly sorry for your loss._

* * *

 

When the oven dings, Carol waits for the casserole to cool and then takes it over to Deanna’s house. I sit on the porch watching moths and mosquitoes hover around the lamps on the banister for a few minutes. Sam doesn’t stop talking to me.

“Carol made me more cookies, like you said. Should I get you a notepad to write in? Or, I guess you can’t use it. You can’t write, unless you’re left handed, which I know you’re not because I’ve seen you doing homework with Ron before. Did your parents fight?”

I look at him. I nod.

“Were the fights bad?”

I shrug, then I think about it and shake my head.

“Did they divorce?”

I shake my head.

“Do you think they would've? If none of this'd happened?”

I’ve never thought about it. What kid thinks about that?

Sam keeps talking: “Sometimes I wish my parents would. The fights. They get real bad sometimes. I have a bolt, inside my closet. Mom put it there. She tells me to lock myself in and to not to come out until morning. I can hear them. Dad yelling. Things breaking. Mom... crying.”

Sam looks like he doesn’t want to tell me anything else, but he's lost hold of telling, each word drawing the next.

“Last month it got real quiet, right in the middle of it all. I went out to find her. Ron was gone. I found her. Mom. She was on the floor... bleeding. And Dad? Dad was out on the porch. Sitting in his chair.”

He looks me dead in the eye.

“I didn’t take the cookies,” Sam tells me. “You were wrong, before. I keep secrets, but bad things still happen.”

I’m so guilty. I told him that. _I told him that._ Sam is crying and I don’t know what to do. I touch his shoulder. Sam cries harder. I pull, and then he’s clinging to me and I’m hugging him back. I don’t know how long it takes for him to stop crying, but eventually he sits back again and wipes his face.

“Sorry,” he sniffs.

I shake my head, point at me, me, I am who should be sorry.

Something moves in the corner of my eye and we both look. Carol is standing on the sidewalk.

“Sam,” she says, “come inside.”

* * *

 

She and Sam talk for a long time, and then she takes him home. I stay in my room, alone, listening to the world outside my window; which is broken, but I don’t know why. At some point, I hear Rick and Carol talking on the porch.

“I sent a casserole to Deanna’s family. We want her to see that. You thought about Pete? About what I said?”

“Yeah.”

She tells him what Sam said to me.

Rick asks, “Why do you care what happens to Jessie?”

“You know why,” Carol replies. “I know why you do.”

“Why?”

“I've seen you talk to her...” I don’t know what this means and I don’t find out because she moves on: “If walkers hadn't gotten Ed, I wouldn't be standing here.”

“Yeah you would.”

Rick walks away. Carol stays out there. I must fall asleep because the next thing I know is that other people are out on the porch now. Penelope and Noah.

“It went the way it had to. The way it was always going to.”

“You always say that.”

“Yeah. Tyreese would say it,” he tells her. “He said that it’s our duty to keep up with what's happening, and what's going on in the world. Face it. Keep our eyes open. Said it was called paying the high cost of livin'.”

He sighs.

“My parents. My uncle, and brothers,” he adds. “I know bad stuff happened to them. I know they were murdered, but... I’m trying. I'm paying the bill.”

Penelope doesn’t say anything.

“This isn’t the end,” he tells her. “This is the beginning. I believe in this place. It'll work out here. And... everything that happened to you, it's over now, like you said. You can choose to forget it. But forgetting isn't the same as hiding it. You let it go. And it won't end you when you do.”

He comes up not long later and sleeps, but his snoring keeps me awake, so I go and sleep in with Carl for the rest of the night, spelling words on his shoulder with his hair like I used to — one-way communication.

_Sei la mia anima gemella_

_Luce dei miei occhi_

_Il mio amore_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy reading.


	78. Season 5 ~ Try, Part 2: In the Forest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Small centred bit in Carl’s pov, rest is Oliver.

It snows for the next few days, hiding all of Alexandria under several inches of sparkling snow. Nothing else changes. Nothing gets better or worse. Everything just... is. I need help with almost everything. I can’t dress on my own. I can’t make food on my own. I can’t speak.

I can walk though, so that’s what I do. Carl never asks to come with me. Not because of the cold but because he knows I’d prefer to be alone. It’s freezing, even with the several layers of flannel shirts and sweaters, a coat, glove, scarf and beanie hat. My breath is steam and after a while my nose stings and I have to breathe through my mouth.

At some point, I notice footsteps in the snow leading to the wall. Enid’s. It’s difficult, climbing up to the top, but I manage okay because she’d left her support poles. Her towel is here, too, and I know she hasn’t been long because it’s not very snowy. I tuck it into the hemp of my jeans, then climb down, carefully. The snow outside is mostly unsettled and fresh, except her footsteps leading into the forest and the few walker tracks left along the wall. They’re all gone now, except one, which is frozen solid slumped against the wall.

I look around, see nothing, then I follow Enid into the trees, where the wind stops, suddenly, and everything turns very quiet, like the snow and trees are creating a sound barrier against the world. I look up at the sun and clouds through the treetops and squint.

I follow Enid’s footsteps on, until they begin to overlap, and I realise she knows I’m here, and that she’s leading me in circles.

I sigh. I turn around and head back the way I came.

“Oliver...”

Startling, I look around.

“I know you're following me. Again,” she says. “And you're going the wrong way.”

I am? I look at the tangle of tracks under me. My footsteps and hers. Back and forth. Crap... she’s right. I have no idea where I am.

“You're quiet, I'll give you that,” she tells me. “Carl isn’t. He's very loud.”

I find this funny.

“Do you know how to get back?”

I shake my head.

“Want me to take you?”

Again, no; I try to say so, but nothing comes out more than a scratchy crack. And then Enid is standing a few feet away, standing out like a black hole in the whiteness and all misted up behind a cloud of her breath.

“Okay,” she says. “We can stay out here.”

She looks at the towel in my pocket, steps closer, and I hand it to her. In return, she hands me a notebook and pen from her backpack.

I shake my head.

“Keep it,” she says anyway. “You have to learn to be left-handed sometime.”

I fold it in half and push it into my back pocket.

She turns and starts walking. It’s strange, Carl and I have talked about doing this with Enid for weeks, like it would be some fantastical adventure.

“You frown a lot,” she tells me at some point.

I stop frowning.

“How come you don’t want to go home yet?” she asks.

I shrug.

“You’re not afraid, even after what you saw, what you’ve done.”

I don’t do anything because it wasn’t a question.

We walk some more.

I touch her forearm, point.

“Why am I out here?” she asks.

Nod.

Shrug. “Same reason as you.”

Then, without warning, she takes off running, and once the moment of confusion and shell shock passes, I take off running, too — weaving through tree trunks, leaping over logs, racing through the snowy undergrowth. My breath catches fire in my chest. All this crazyterrible, pent-up energy bursting from me in tandem.

Finally, Enid yanks me to stop. We’re out of breath, sweating from adrenaline, leaving steam coming off our skin. A walker stumbles through the trees. I feel my face change from grin to frown.

I take my knife, only Enid pulls a cooking timer out of her pocket. She sets it for ten seconds, then throws it into the distance, dodging back behind the tree with me. We watch each other, smiling. As the timer rings, she tugs my sleeve and we take off running again.

* * *

 

“Bon Jovi, again?”

“ _Yes!_ Hey, where’s your homey, man?”

“Shut up.”

“Does he officially qualify as a pirate now? Or does he still have to get an eye patch and a parrot?”

“Ron, go easy. He's not exactly as thrilled about it as you are.”

“Dude... he got bit by a geek and he's still alive. And he chopped his hand off. That's freaking awesome!”

“He didn't chop it off. Noah did.”

“But he tore the walker's throat out.”

“Bullshit! Carl?”

“Yes, Carl, tell this idiot what happened.”

“I know Noah chopped it. And, I guess, since Oliver was in the door, only he could have killed the walker.”

“Awesome.”

“Guys, easy. Just... try not to make a big deal about it.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

* * *

 

The snow crunches under our boots. She takes my hand or I take hers, and finally, we slow to a stop at an overturned trunk. One side of it has a mound of snow, and the other side is clear under the cover of the tree nearby. We sit there, breathless, looking around at the white forest.

I cough, take my inhaler, and she watches me do that.

“Sorry,” she says, “running just... makes me feel better.”

I shrug. I pull my notebook out of my pocket, brush off the snow, and write out: _Need to be here. Need to feel this. Don’t want to forget._ It takes a few scribbles and it’s barely readable, but she seems to appreciate it.

“I dream of them,” she says. “About being in the forest with them, and the people I've lost.'

I point at myself, then hold up two fingers: me, too.

“What does it feel like? Only having one?”

What does it feel like? It feels like I don't have a right hand anymore. It feels like I'm never going to write properly or use a gun or put on my clothes. I'm never going to play an instrument or hold a book, or drive a car, or even clap. I'll never fix a shelf, or use a power tool, or twist a can opener, which I kind of really, really need to be able to do sometimes. So, how does it feel? It feels great. Just great. I love not having my hand. I love it.

“That bad, huh?”

I didn’t say anything.

I write: _Does Ron know you come out here?_

“Ron, no...”

_Nell_

“I... They wouldn't understand.”

_Do I understand?_

Enid looks at me. She smiles. “You knew I wanted apple juice.”

I smile.

She spends a minute carving into the tree trunk beside her.

“Co...” I clear my throat and try again at a whisper. “Cool knife...”

“It was my mom's,” she whispers back.

 _What happened?_ I start to write, but she answers before I get through the second word.

“Does it matter?”

I nod.

“Why?” she asks.

_Bad things have happened to me too._

Just then, there’s a growling and crunching coming through the forest behind us. Enid and I are on our feet before we see them. We can’t run. We’ll be seen like a light in the dark, through the snow. Enid grasps my sleeve and yanks me inside a hollowed-out tree trunk a few yards away. In minutes, a whole herd is ambling past us, through the snow. I’m shaking — the cold or the fear, I don’t know.

I look at Enid and she is totally calm. Not even shaking. She leans close and whispers into my ear, “It's their world, Oliver... we're just living in it.”

She pulls away — I don’t want her to, so I touch her wrist.

She looks at me.

We wait for the walkers to leave.

“Want to go home now?”

Slowly, I nod.

She smiles. “Cool.”

* * *

 

Back outside Alexandria, we find the walker slumped against the wall. The snow is thawing under the sun, and as we approach, it lifts its head to us. I put it down.

“Look...” Enid says.

I do. Carved into the walker’s forehead is the letter W.

We climb back over and head back across the community. Enid tells me that she’ll let me and Carl read some more of her comic books:—“Got this manga: Tokyo Ghoul. It’s good.” “Thanks.”

Someone is yelling in the distance.

“Deanna!”

Enid and I run for the noise — in the street outside Ron and my house, Rick and Pete fighting. They twist around in the snow, punching and throttling each other; I see small sparkling glass shatters denting into the snow; Jessie’s window is broken, scuffs in the snow leading off her porch. Jessie is crying. Carol is clutching to Sam. Glenn and Nicholas run over and watch. Mikey, Nell, Ron and Carl, too.

Rick is punched to the ground and Pete chokes him into the slush, fingers bloody and blue. Jessie tries to pull him off, but his elbow comes up, hitting her face and throwing her backwards.

“Mom!”

Ron grabs her, holding her while she cries and bleeds into his chest. Rick grabs Pete, strangling him now.

“Dad!” Carl grabs him. “Get off!”

Rick shoves him away, thrashing him around the chest — Carl flails backwards into the trodden snow and I’m there then, pulling him up.

Rick has a death lock on Pete’s throat, pulling him taut at an odd, backwards angle over his knee. He tells him, “Touch them again, and I kill you.” He knows? Ron looks at me, thinking the same thing, and I shake my head frantically. _Wasn’t me. I kept my promise. I kept all of them. I swear!_

“Stop!” Deanna shouts. “Stop it!”

There are too many people watching. Pete’s turning purple.

“ _Dammit_ , Rick! I said stop!”

He lets go. Pete retches, his temples bulging and face swollen. Both of them are bleeding — Rick’s got a cut so deep across his nose everything under it is red, even his uniform and the snow. As they.

“Or what!” Rick pulls his gun out, shuffling and sitting up — glass and snow cracks under his knees. “You gonna kick me out?”

“Put that gun down, Rick,” Deanna says.

People are yelling.

“You still don't get it,” he growls. “ _None_ of you do! We know what needs to be done and we do it! We're the ones who _live!_ You! You just sit, and plan, and hesitate! You pretend like you know when you _don't!_ ”

I hear, up in the guard tower, Sasha shooting down at walkers gathering at the walls. I watch her silhouette against the white clouds.

“I wish things weren't what they are,” Rick adds. “You wanna live? You want this place to stay standing? Your way of doing things is done! Things don't get better 'cause you want them to! Starting right now, we have to live in the real world. We have to control who lives here.”

“That's never been more clear to me than it is right now,” Deanna says.

“ _Me?_ ” Rick laughs, stretching his arms out like he’s challenging the world to crash down around him. Blood streams down his face. He looks dangerous. “Me?” he asks again. “You... You mean me? Your way's gonna destroy this place. It's gonna get people killed. It's already gotten people killed! And I'm not gonna stand by and let it happen. If you don't fight, you die! I'm not gonna stand by, and ju—”

I watch Michonne march towards him, her face hard and her fist bawled tight. Before he can react or keep talking, she punches him across the back of his head. He makes no noise. He just collapses into the show.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God damn it, Oliver. Stay in the fucking house. You're worse than Carl! Thank you to Rolo-chan for the Tokyo Ghoul recommendation.
> 
> Changed Enid’s words a bit. Just don’t see why she'd tell him that she’s scared of him. Maybe she feels it, but telling him, and even telling Carl in the show, was a bit out of her character. She seems too stubborn to just outwardly admit that. Idk, I left it out.
> 
> Happy reading.


	79. Season 5 ~ Conquer, Part 1: Afraid

Rick’s taken to a brownstone apartment to be looked after. He stays there all night. There's talk of a meeting about what happened, and what to do with both Pete and Rick. In the morning, Michonne, Carol, Abraham and Glenn go to talk to him.

Penelope and Enid come over to give me all their read comics. We read for a while and then we talk about what happened yesterday; I mostly listen to them talk about it, occasionally chiming in with head shakes or nods or a few small, easy words.

“Do you really trust him?” I’m asked. “Do you really trust Rick?”

I nod, whisper, “He saved my life. Patrick’s.”

“Who’s dead now,” Penelope says.

I look at her. Enid, too. Penelope looks ashamed of herself, but doesn’t say sorry. Deciding I’m done with this conversation, I get up from the couch and walk away. Penelope chases me across the room, grabs my arm. I flinch and pull away.

“You and Enid go around like you know everything,” I croak at her. “Like you got it all figured. You... You _don't_. You're just...”

My throat catches fire.

“You're just girls,” I say. “You’re just afraid, like the rest of us.”

Penelope steps back. She looks at Enid, then me again. “You’re going to get hurt by him,” she warns me. She glances at Enid again and says, “You always get hurt by the people you trust.”

She leaves the house. I’m standing there, in my living room, wanting desperately to find some way to straighten out everything tangling up around us, but I know not to.

I look at Enid. “What did she mean by that?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“You’re lying,” she says.

She shrugs again. “Maybe.”

I sigh and sit with her.

“She’s right though,” she admits. “It’s just how it works. You don't get to control who disappoints you. If they die, or if you lose them. People change... and sometimes they change into something worse.”

“I know,” I whisper. “I know...”

* * *

 

Later, when Enid is gone, and Carol is downstairs making lasagne for Pete — he’s in a house away from his family, too. I’m in my room looking at the things pinned on my wall. Photos mostly, that Penelope developed. One’s missing. When Carl comes over, I ask where the photo is, and he pulls it out of his pocket and puts it back.

“Sorry.”

We sit together, not talking for a while, just listening to the wind rattling the windows. The snow is still thawing, leaving a bitter cold behind in the wake of every open window or door. I haven’t taken my jacket or beanie off in days.

“Go see your dad?” I ask quietly.

“No,” Carl says. “Didn’t want to. I went to see Tara — she’s healing. Not awake yet, though.” He sighs. “How was your walk?”

I look at him, realising I forgot to tell him about it.

“I saw Enid,” I tell him. “Out there.”

“In the forest?” he asks.

I nod. “We were running.”

“Away?”

I shake my head. “Just... running.”

Carl thinks about that for a minute. “Was it good?”

“Yeah,” I whisper. “It was.”

“Could we go together, one day?” he asks. “Me, you and her?”

“I hope so.”

Carl thinks about that, too, for a minute.

“Do you... like her?” he asks.

I hesitate. Then I nod. “I think so... a little.”

Carl looks at his hands. “Is... that why you went without me?”

“No,” I say. “No. I just... went.”

“Because... I get it. She’s a girl.”

“Are we doing this again?” I ask.

“I don’t know, I guess.”

I sigh. I sit up so I can look at him better. “Okay, fine. She is a girl. I think she’s pretty. I think she’s beautiful, actually. But it’s not like it’s any more than that. She has a boyfriend. _I_ have a boyfriend. And I like it that way. I really like it that way.”

Carl is quiet for a minute. Then he tells me, “Okay.”

I sit back again.

“For the record, I think you’re pretty and beautiful, too,” I say. “Way more pretty and beautiful. Like, tonnes. Oceans. Worlds more—”

“Shut up,” he laughs.

“Okay,” I say. My arm begins to itch and I say, “I think I should change it.”

“Do you want me to?” he asks.

“No,” I say. “I can get Carol to, when she’s back.”

“It’s okay,” he says. “I don’t mind.”

I don’t believe him. “It’s ugly.”

“It’s not ugly.”

“You don’t know ugly.”

“I do.”

“I know. I’m scared. It’s ugly.”

“I know.” He steps off the bed and goes out of the room, then comes back with the box of medical things from the bathroom. He sets it on the bedside and looks at me. “Guide me through what to do?”

I do. I take him through the healing creams and the cleaning process. It’s grim, and it takes a long time, and my hand itches except how can it itch when it isn’t there? When he’s part way through applying some aloe cream, the itching becomes so bad that I have to pull away, pace the room, shake my hand around.

“Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Can I have your hand back?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“It’s not there.”

“You know what I mean.”

Suddenly, I lose it. My insides are on fire. Flames of red and black and blue jut off and catch the curtains. Green embers dust the carpet behind my feet. I’m throwing things, yelling, crying. He grabs me. My arm is throbbing. My throat hurts too badly to speak.

He helps me put things back again. After, I let him finish wrapping my arm.

“It was me, who broke your window,” he says. “Sorry.”

I shrug.

“I found condoms in Dad’s drawer,” he adds. “I think he’s having an affair with Jessie.”

I watch his face and it is showing no emotion.

“How long have you thought this?” I ask him.

“While,” he says.

“Are you upset?”

“Guess.”

“Because it’s cheating?”

“Because he’s acting like Shane,” he says. “Because... I’m afraid of it ending the same way.”

We’re quiet for a while until he’s done redressing my arm.

“Do you want to go for a walk?” I ask him.

“Not really,” he says. “It’s cold.”

“Well, do you want to go next door?” I ask. “Hang out with Judy?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, pick some comics and we’ll go.”

“Okay.”

* * *

 

Later, I sit with Carl and Judith on the couch and read _Tokyo Ghoul_. It takes a few pages for me to realise I’m supposed to read right to left. At some point, I look up at Carl. He’s staring into space, a hand on Judy’s back while she messes with a coaster.

I touch his collarbone. There’s a bruise. Carl snaps out of it and pulls his coat up to hide it.

“Your dad?” I ask, not sure if I’m asking who caused the bruise of who he was thinking about. Either way, Carl nods. His eyes are bloodshot and bagged, his face gaunt. He hasn’t slept or eaten properly in days.

Rick comes in through the back door, shutting in a gust of cold behind him.

“Dad!”

He opens an arm and Carl fits into his chest like a Tetris block. Judith fusses. I can’t pick her up like she wants, so I just sit with her on my lap.

“You okay?” Carl asks.

“Yeah.” Rick looks at us both, and then he walks over and puts a hand on my shoulder. He strokes Judith’s hair. His face is all cut up and stitched, and his right hand is wrapped in a thin layer of bandage. “Look... I'm sorry.”

Carl shrugs. I think about the bruise he’s hiding.

“We heard about the meeting.”

“You're staying home,” Rick says. “Both of you.”

“That's what it is now, right? Home?”

Rick watches him. “Yeah...”

Carl nods, shifting on his feet — like Rick does sometimes. His head’s tilted. “They need us,” he says. “They'll die without us.”

“I might have to threaten one of them,” Rick says. “I could have to kill one of them.”

“You won't.”

“I might.”

“You have to tell them.”

“Well, I told them last night.”

“You have to tell them, so they can hear you...”

Dragging a man through a window and beating him purple in front of his wife and children and community was definitely not an effective strategy — they may have heard him last night, but they certainly didn't listen.

Rick looks lost. He looks at me, like I’m his third consciousness after his own and Carl’s; he must be able to tell I agree with his son.

“I don't know if they can,” he admits.

Carl sighs.

“Does that make you afraid?” Rick asks.

Carl shakes his head, shifting again. “For them. You have to tell them.”

Rick looks at his feet. He nods. “I’ll try.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know when I do that thing? Writing 'out' instead of 'our' and 'or' instead of 'of' or mixing up is, it, and if, and like never sticking to how to spell jeeze/jeez/geez/geeze. I miss the last letter in weird words like heart (hear) or some other shit like that? Well, it really fucks me off, and I always do it. I get my tenses muddled. Body parts mixed. Blah blah blah. So, I'm sorry. I'm only human. But please point it out so I can fix...
> 
> Happy reading.


	80. Season 5 ~ Conquer, Part 2: Mellifluous

Mikey can’t find his dad:—“It’s just... weird. He doesn't stay out this long, ever. After Aiden, runners aren't supposed to leave, not this late.”

I’m fiddling with Maggie’s music box, snap it shut, and the soft song stops. It’s hard to talk to Mikey after what happened, what his father did.

Mikey rubs his mouth. “Anyway... the meeting’s starting in an hour and I was looking for him. I guess I thought... you might have an idea.”

I don’t.

“Do you think he’s avoiding it?” Carl asks, and Mikey's face becomes a crack in a concrete road.

“I don’t know...”

Then Abraham is standing at the front door with a cluster of flowers spilling over his hands. They're floppy and long and white. “Any of you know where I can get a vase for these?”

We don’t.

Abraham sighs and looks at the flowers. “Probably something in the infirmary.” He goes to the dining room table and does his best neatening the flowers into something of a bouquet. When he can't, he stares at them hopelessly; lower lip bunching up his thick orange moustache.

I walk over, neatens them for him. Abraham frowns gratefully and slaps me on the back hard enough I jostle. Then he leaves. I guess he’s nervous. Eugene’s been hanging out at the infirmary lately, and Abraham’s been avoiding him ever since before Grady.

“I should go,” Mikey says. “Good luck, tonight. I hope everything is neatened out.”

I nod awkwardly.

“Thanks,” Carl says, walking him to the door, and even after it is shut and Mikey is gone, Carl stands there, lost in his head. He’s so worried he looks sick. Finally, he returns. He tells me he needs to sleep and I think that’s a great idea, that I’ll look after Judith, and that’s what happens for a couple hours.

By the time it’s dark and I’ve put Judith to bed, I find a ukulele in the closet and go downstairs with it. It’s hard to play with one hand, but eventually, after playing it softly enough, I can get a decent enough tune using my bandage to strum. It feels good to play again, after so many years.

At some point, I realise Carl is watching me from the archway.

“You don’t have to stop,” he tells me.

Still, I set the ukulele down on the coffee table, feeling hot and embarrassed. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

He shrugs. “You were good.”

I smile.

“Mellifluous,” he adds.

I frown.

“Means a nice, sweet sound,” he explains. “Nell — she said at the welcome party, about Deanna’s orchestra music. How many songs do you know?”

I shrug. “Not sure. Sometimes I just make them up.”

“That one wasn’t made up,” he says. “I know it...”

“You Are My Sunshine,” I say.

Carl nods.

“Few weeks ago,” he tells me, “I saw you and Nell, dancing. It was nice.”

I smile, embarrassed. Carl is looking at his hands, looking anxious, like he’s running out of things to think and talk about. I have something, so I get up and take his hand, thinking we can dance, too, thinking that it might help.

He laughs, draping his arms around my shoulders and leaning into me, pressing our foreheads. We sway side to side, and then he starts to sing to me.

“ _You are my sunshine, my only sunshine_  
 _You make me happy when skies are grey_  
 _You never know, dear, how much I love you_  
 _Please don't take my sunshine away...”_

He gets embarrassed so I kiss him and whisper for him to keep going. He does.

_“The other night, dear, as I lay sleeping_   
_I dreamt I held you in my arms_   
_When I awoke, dear, I was mistaken_   
_So I hung my head, and cried_

_You are my sunshine, my only sunshine_   
_You make me happy when skies are grey_   
_You never know, dear, how much I love you_   
_Please don't take my sunshine away...”_

We dance some more for a while.

“Do you still love me?”

“Yeah.”

“Even without a hand?”

“Yeah.”

“I understand, if you don't.”

“I do. Come with me...”

"Are... you sure?"

"Yeah."

“Okay...”

* * *

 

Sometime later, Carl is curled up at my side, asleep. Feeling very calm, I run my fingers along his shoulder and down his side, his skin smooth and warm and a little damp.

A dog is barking non-stop in the distance. I can hear it, muffled through the closed window, and at some point it occurs to me that it’s Bean. He goes on for a long time. Too long for normal. I get a bad feeling. I try to push it away. I try to sleep, but I can’t.

Finally, I shuffle my arm out from under him. He mumbles something but I tell him to sleep, and he does, then I leave the house. I arrive at the pantry not long later. Bean is inside, barking through the side door, at me... and the corpse lying in the grass in front of me.

It’s a walker, old, killed. It got in though. There could be more. I knock on the door desperately. Nobody answers. I think of the meeting, turn and run. The meeting is only a block away, so I get there quickly. I can hear talking, Rick mostly. A crowd of Alexandrians block the entrance to Deanna’s front yard and I can’t shout to get Rick’s attention, so I crouch, see through legs that there’s a dead walker by the fire.

“It got inside on its own,” Rick says. “They always will — the dead, and the living. Because we're in here.”

I push through people until I reach Penelope and Enid. I tug on their sleeves. By the look on their faces they already know about the walker outside their house.

“And the ones out there,” Rick goes on, “they'll hunt us. They'll find us. They'll try to use us. They'll try to kill us. But we'll kill them. We'll survive, I'll show you how.”

He's doing it, what Carl said. He's telling them in a way that they'll hear him.

“You know, I was thinking: _How many of you do I have to kill, to save your lives?_ But I'm not gonna do that. You're gonna change. I'm not sorry for what I said last night. I'm sorry for not saying it sooner. You're not ready. But you have to be. Right now. You have to be... Luck runs out.”

Then Mr. Anderson rounds the gateway on the other side of the yard, leaving the shadows and stepping into the glow of the firelight. His shoulders are hunched, teeth bared, eyes red, and Michonne’s katana in hand.

“You're not one of us!”

Jessie shakes her head.

Again he shouts, “You're not _one of us!_ ”

Reg rushes up and takes his shoulders. “Pete, you don't wanna do this.” He’s shoved away. “Just stop...”

“Get the hell away from me. Rick.” He’s drunk.

Everyone is uneasy on their feet. I can see their breath, puffing fast.

“Reg,” Deanna warns. “Reg.”

Rick steps forward.

“Not now,” Carol warns him.

“Stop,” Reg begs.

“Get out of my way!” The katana comes up. “ _Get away!_ ” And suddenly Reg is hit by lightning, or that’s what it looks like. The way he jerks back. Except electricity doesn’t split your throat in two. Electricity doesn’t send red siphoning out between your fingers so fast you can’t hold onto it all.

Deanna’s screaming.

I’ve seen someone die before. I know what it’s like. I can stare Death in the face and Death is always the one to blink first, but I never win the contest. Nobody does.

Abraham rushes past me in a gust of wind and then he’s knocking Pete to the ground. Jessie is screaming, too. Death is blinking and blinking and blinking only it’s Reg and he’s dying and dying and dead in his wife’s arms.

“Oh god!” she wails. “No, my love! No! _No!_ No, my love!”

“This is _him!_ ” Pete screams, his face in the ground.

“Shut up!” Abraham shouts.

“This is him! It's him! _This is him!_ ”

Penelope looks away, hugging Enid. Enid just watches, tears falling but her face blank.

“Rick,” Deanna, whispers, her face all wet and bloody and scrunched up like paper. “Do it...” and he does, just like that, shooting Pete through the skull and his brains spread across the brick.

I shiver. Penelope is crying. Enid shudders. Jessie collapses. People are screaming and Rick glares down the barrel of his gun, blood dripping and his face.

“Rick?”

Three figures are stood in the place Pete came in. Daryl and Aaron and a third man; a stranger. Only he can’t have been. He was who said Rick's name. Buzzcut black hair, bearded, dark brown skin, wearing a trench coat and black gloves and a backpack. He’s holding a long, sturdy stick.

Rick glares at him. “Morgan...”

* * *

 

Soon after, I get back to the house. Carl is awake, after hearing the gunshot, and Judith is crying. I explain everything. We all sit at the dinner table in silence afterward, waiting for the others. Maggie arrives first, and makes soup for us, and then, as we’re finishing, Noah comes by and tells us we need to come to the clinic.

Glenn is injured, something like a flesh wound or a deep gash on his shoulder, which Denise is tending to, but it isn’t only that Noah brought us here for.

Tara is awake, sitting up in bed. Rosita is here. Sasha and Eugene, too.

“Noah,” Tara says, “why’d you bring so many people. It’s not like I just woke up from a coma or anything.”

He laughs and holds her hand.

She looks at me, at my hand, and her eyes become wet.

“Oh... shit.”

“Yeah,” I say, eyes wet, too.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” I say, meaning it. “It’s alright.”

On our way back, we see Enid sitting up on the gazebo roof, messing with a lighter. I tell him he should ask her about going into the woods, so he kisses my forehead and tells me he’ll be home soon.

“It’s alright,” I whisper, meaning it this time, too. “See you later, man.”

I wait for him, sitting on my porch steps reading _Philosopiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica_ by Isaac Newton. Carol gave it to me, didn’t say why. Whatever, I like math. I look up when I hear footsteps.

The street is dark, lit by nothing but the dim glow of the porch lights. I stand up. Ron leaves the darkness and walks up onto his steps. _His father just died._ He stops at his front door and I see that he’s crying very hard. I’ve never seen Ron cry. _His father just died._ It’s odd how someone can be feared and hated and loved and lost all at the same time. It probably doesn’t scratch the surface.

Suddenly, Ron turns to me. He steps over to the edge of his porch, directly opposite me, then he pulls off his beanie and throws it across to me. I catch it. It’s one of mine that he borrowed a few weeks ago. I throw it back. He catches it, wanting him to hold on to it, and without a word he turns around and is gone.

I can't tell if it’s going to be alright this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of Part Two: The Easy Part.
> 
> Thank you for sticking around.
> 
> Super thank you to DarthGranola and Ana-DaughterofHades (DG mentioned you a while back) for the suggestion with the ukulele and song part. It was so great, thanks.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	81. Season 6 ~ First Time Again: A Tragedy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beginning of Part Three: Lost Boy

In the main house, on a normal, lazy, spring morning, I curl up in the living-room armchair and write into Carol’s flip-book:

_Oliver Fabiano De Luca_   
_Date of birth: September 30th 1996_   
_Age: 15_   
_Fact #1. I had a brother, Patrick._   
_Fact #2. I got bit, and I lost my right hand._

"PT?" Carl asks, crossing the room with two bowls in hand. He sets them on the table and I go sit in front of my bowl, nodding thanks as we start eating. He cranes his neck to read the flip-book, open. "Cool — you could pass for a total left-hander now."

Mouth full of dry cereal, I shape-shift into a human shrug.

Swapping my spoon for my pen, I write:

_Fact #3. My left handwriting is better._   
_Fact #4. I play ukulele, guitar, and I want to learn piano._   
_Fact #5. My favourite book is Butterfly Lion — I don’t know why._

Carl grins like I’ve just created a new colour.

I keep writing:

_Fact #6. I have gravity defying hair._   
_Fact #7. I'm an orphan._   
_Fact #8. I've killed people, and watched people die._

Very quietly, Carl says, "You don't need to write that."

Keeping my eyes on the book, I say, "I do."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah — so I don't forget."

I think about what to write. ‘My mom was Italian but she didn’t like pizza.’ ‘My dad was Jewish but I never got my bar mitzvah.’ I could write a list of everything that I’m afraid of, or why zebras are great, but instead I just write:

_Fact #9. I'm a beanie kind of guy.  
Fact #10. I'm in love with my best friend._

Carl huffs and shakes his head. “Dork.”

I shut the flip-book, go on with eating breakfast. Outside, through the window, I see Carol crossing the street. She stops at the foot of the porch, looking at something.

“Sam...”

I sit up and see him sitting on the step.

"Your dad used to hit you and then he got himself killed,” she tells him. "It happened. Now it's done. You live with it or it eats you up. Go home."

She walks inside, carrying a green bag full of pantry ingredients. She peers out the window and watches Sam outside. He must leave, because she heads into the kitchen.

"Mrs. Neudermyer broke her pasta maker," she says.

"She found one?" Carl asks.

"Where do you think me and Oliver have been getting all our fresh pasta from?" She asks, unpacking noodle and celery soup cans. She sighs. "She only had it for a couple weeks..."

She looks at me like she’s expecting me to talk about it, too, but I don’t want to talk about pasta-makers. I want to talk about things that matter, like why she won’t invite Sam inside anymore, but possum Carol’s still playing dead so I don’t say anything.

Carol moves on, occupying herself with a baking dish and a nut cracker, shooing Bean away when he sniffs at her ankles — we're dog-sitting, since Nell is out on a dry run.

Done with breakfast, Carl and I go upstairs into his room. On his stereo, we listen to some moody, slow album; one of Aiden’s old mixes. I read _Tokyo Ghoul_. At some point, Carl says something to me.

“Did you hear me?”

I look at him, guilty.

"I said Michonne never put her katana back, after that night," he says. “It’s like she never even put it up there in the first place.”

_It's on your back... even when it's off your back.  
**Even when it’s stolen and used to kill someone.**_

They didn’t bury Pete in the community. We don’t bury killers — or at least we don’t kill the killers who aren’t on our side.

“You’re not talking to me again.”

“I’m talking.”

“You’re not.”

“I am. Sorry.”

He sighs. “Are you worried?”

I nod. “I think so. It’s a big herd. Bigger than I’ve ever heard of.”

They were burying Pete when they found it, the herd, trapped at the bottom of the quarry out west. Thousands of them. That's why Alexandria's still standing. The walkers were busy growling down there instead of eating over here. Like our own booby trap, only... it won’t hold them forever.

“They’re sorting it,” Carl says. “Finishing the diversion wall, out there at Marshal and Redding."

“I know,” I say, wanting to change subject.

He thinks of something first: “Gabriel wants me to start teaching him to defend himself now; asked today while I was walking Judith.”

“Will you?”

“Yeah,” he says, “later.”

“Can I... join?”

Carl looks at me, my arm, then me again. He nods. “Of course, man.”

We’re quiet for a minute. Carl leans back on the bed, into my knees, and I go back to reading my comic...

 _I'm not the protagonist of a novel or anything..._  
_But..._  
 _If, for argument's sake, you were to write a story with me in the lead role..._  
 _It would certainly be..._  
 _A tragedy._

Then someone screams outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	82. Season 6 ~ JSS, Part 1: To Die

A packet of cigarettes fling from Mrs. Neudermyer’s hand and her skull is split open at the mercy of someone’s tomahawk. I see it through the window. I watch. They climb over the walls, dressed in cloaks with rags over their faces and chains twisted around their shoulders and arms. Carl ducks out of the window, pulling me with him. I switch off the stereo, grabs my holster — drop it. He helps me. We organise ourselves quickly. Outside, people are screaming. Carl shuts Judith in her room. As we come downstairs, the house smells of paprika and Carol rushes across the living room. She grabs Bean before he can get to the window.

"We saw them from upstairs," Carl says. "They're coming in from all over."

"You both have to stay here and keep Judith safe." She leaves.

Carl looks at me, then away when we hear gunshots.

“They’re killing us,” I say.

“We can defend ourselves,” he says back.

We shut and lock every window and door in the house, collecting ourselves at the base of the staircase when we’re done. Something smashes outside. People are screaming. Shooting; but not much. Then there’s rattling at the back door. Bean’s hackles rise, twice his normal size. I put my back to the wall opposite the door. Carl next to me, rifle ready. Hearts racing, we watch a shadow move across the curtain. Carl switches walls. As the door opens, we take aim and Enid startles.

"Hi?" she says.

I grab her and pull her inside.

Carl locks the door. "Why didn't you just knock?"

"I have these," she says, presenting a set of keys. "Didn't want them to have them." Snatching them, he marches into the kitchen and tosses them by the cooking timer. "And... I wanted to say goodbye."

I look at her.

"Watch the backdoor," Carl instructs. "Tell me if you see them coming. Oliver, get the—"

"I'm not staying," Enid argues, following us into the living room.

"You're not going anywhere," he tells her, moving the coffee table aside. “Sit down. You're helping us protect Judith. They're not getting inside this house... We’re not gonna let them."

Reluctantly, Enid drops her backpack and sits on the floor with him, back to back.

"Did you see them?"

"They're just people." She sounds tired, clutching Bean close. "This place is too big to protect. There're too many blind spots. That's how Oliver and I were able to—"

"They got in the walls," Carl says. "They're gonna die. All of them."

He’s mad at both of us.

"Don't tell me goodbye," he says.

Enid looks at me and inhales. “Okay... I won't.”

I sit with them, making a triangle shape in the space between our backs. We watch the exits. Carl tries to touch my amputation, but I pull it away. I put it in my lap. Should've wrapped it. And I’m thinking about this when a horn goes off — so loud it could blow the house down. We don’t speak. We don’t move. Something's on fire. It smells like train stations and infirmaries.

I shuffle across the room to the window, ducking as a man I've never seen before runs across the street. He has a chain around his neck, a W scar on his forehead — I’ve seen that before, on the walker Enid and I found. Óhara just watches him, stunned. She has a big brother named Brad and a black dog and as she turns to run a machete comes down across her shoulders. I watch. He chops her up. Splits her open. He dips a dirty red finger into her chest and paints a 'W' over his own scar.

I stagger back.

Something touches my shoulder and I flinch. It's Carl. I know he's talking but I'm not hearing it. And for a few minutes I’m not hearing anything. I throw up. I realise I’m not the horn is off. And I start to think properly again.

"They don't have guns," Enid says.

_Don’t look out the window._

"Yeah," Carl replies, "yeah, that's good." They both look very small, like children. It occurs to me that they are. That we are. Carl shudders. "Ron..."

Suddenly both of them are rushing to the door. I follow them. Ron is across the street, between houses, running for his life. One of them is chasing him, a young-looking man with black hair and a wild face. I aim for his face but I shoot him through the leg. He screams, crashes to the curb, and his machete flies across the street. Ron passes us, horrified. My hand aches with Backward. Carl steps ahead of me, before the stranger, glaring down the barrel of his rifle.

"Please, man, please? Please don't kill me, man! _Please!_ Help me, please? _My leg!_ " Suddenly, he lunges and snatches Carl’s leg — at a gunshot, he and stumbles back. He looks at the barrel of his gun, confused, then realises I’d shot him. I help him up. We look down at the stranger, the blown-out hole in his jaw. He’s moaning.

Carl steps in front of me. He tells me, “I got it,” and without another beat, puts a bullet through his forehead — I get caught up thinking if that was my kill or his.

Carl walks away.

"Come inside," he tells Ron. "I can keep you safe."

Ron looks at Enid standing on the porch with Bean, spooked and out of breath, then turns to us again. His lip curls. "No."

He turns and walks away.

"Ron!" Carl calls, but he’s gone.

"Guys, come on!" Enid shouts.

Carl grabs my wrist, heading back, but I can see another stranger, dragging Barbra by a chain behind some houses a few streets away. Carl hasn’t noticed and I don’t tell him. I say, “I have to go,” and he says, “Oliver,” and I say, “I’ll be back,” and then I’m running around the lake, after Barbra and the stranger with the chain. He pushes her down in the bushes and the grass. He holds her down. She’s thrashing and screaming and he puts the chain around her neck — and I ram into his side. We both barrel into the lake. Cold eats me. Then I’m drowning. Gulping. Grabbing. I’m pulled up. A wet, bloody face, bared, yellow teeth.

I slash him across the eyes.

He falls back into the water, screaming. Stumbling for the ground, I grab him, stab him, again, and again, and again, and again, a big, dark-red circle pooling around us, and then he is still and I trudge out of the water. Barbra is crying. I ask her if she’s seen Carol. She says no. She say he was going to... but she doesn’t say what. I walk away, soaked and freezing. There’s blood in the street. Windows are smashed. Alexandrians lay killed and mutilated outside of their homes. I watch dark smoke rise into the sky, climb the thin tower of smoke, linger at its top a moment, and then...

I stand there outside Mikey’s house. The front door’s kicked in. A crimson trail leads all the way from the bottom of the steps into the house, a hand-print is against the frame. I go in, gun drawn, dodging and hiding. The basement is open. As I go down, I see a woman kneeling down in something, facing away and talking to herself. Blood everywhere.

“You chose the slow way, my love,” she says.

"P – please..."

My legs are tree roots. I see what it is now. The something she is kneeling in. Mikey. Curled up under the pool table in a lake of his own blood. Picked apart and spilled out over his own lap. Numb all over, I shoot her in the back and she collapses forward against him. I cover my mouth, let go of my gun, yank her off — Mikey looks at me, eyes rolling back. I take his hand because he holds it out for me. He's trembling so hard I can’t hold it steady.

"I don't want to die."

He’s crying. I am, too. And I'm hurting him by trying to move him so I sit behind him instead. I don’t know how long I sit there. Mikey just holds onto me. He finds it hard to keep breathing. He’ll be still for a moment and then he’ll writhe and sob and beg for help, and I’ll push my arms around him and hold him together. All of him. His organs and his flesh. His breath becomes slower. He’s gritting his teeth. Throwing his head back. Pushing his face against me.

“I don’t want to die, Oliver,” he says again, and says other things but it’s hard to understand him. His face is tucked into the crook of my neck. He splutters up blood across my collar, down my shirt. He shakes so hard I can’t hold him still. "M — My dad's gonna kill me. Getting... blood on his... stupid pool table."

I laugh, only I'm crying, and then I kiss him. I whisper, "I'm sorry," into his fringe. Mikey nods like he understands, but he doesn't. Not this. "I'm sorry," I sob again. Mikey looks up at me and I kiss him again. His blood runs down my neck and soaks into my shirt. "I'm so sorry, man."

I’m fast, and he only screams for a moment before it's over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not gona lie. Feel like a monster after writing that.
> 
> I kind of loved that once upon a time Mikey promised Oliver he wouldn't kiss him as a joke and in the end it was Oliver who kissed him. Sucks it was a oh God I really don't want you to die! kind of kiss tho.
> 
> I'M WELL AWARE THAT MIKEY MIGHT BE ALIVE... fuck. Edit later: fuck off it's been two seasons and we haven't seen him once.
> 
> So there's this amazing human being called CodeName A.N.D.Y who has an account over on FictionPress under the name Andy.T and their works are absolutely diamond. So really, check them out. They're so great. Laughter for Liam – I highly recommend reading to anybody, ever, in the universe. Ps. The abrupt end of this chapter was inspired by it, so thank you infinitely, Andy!
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	83. Season 6 ~ JSS, Part 2: It Follows Us

“Oliver does that... sometimes.”

“What?”

“Taps, with his fingers.”

“I wasn’t tapping. I was spelling something.”

“Spelling what?”

"Why'd you let him go?"

"It was his choice... He'll be okay. He's always okay."

"It was stupid."

"He had a reason...”

“It was stupid.”

“What's wrong with you, Enid? You show up here, threaten to leave without telling anyone."

"I told you."

"Nell? Ron?”

“We've been here too long. You can't stay in one place for too long."

"I know that, but... you can't just — how can you just leave us? Why would you do that?"

"Does it matter?"

" _Yes_. I'm not playing this game anymore, Enid."

"It's not a game."

"It is though. Sure, there's that part of you that doesn't want to talk to anybody about where you came from, or how you got here, but there's also that other part of you that likes not telling anybody. You like keeping people out of the loop. And... that’s okay. It is. It's just... not very helpful sometimes."

"Screw you."

"No. Screw you. I lost people, too. And it sucks and it's scary and it makes you not want to try anymore. But we’re kids. We’re supposed to be afraid, and we’re supposed to learn when not to be."

"We’re not kids.”

...

"My parents died right before I found this place.”

“What?”

“I’m telling you how it happened. I’m telling you where I came from.”

“Okay... What happened to them?”

"What always happens."

“Okay.”

“Nell... we kept... meeting, by chance. The first time, we were on the road — I was driving. Mom and Dad were asleep. Nell was with her step-dad and sister, on the side of the road. They were calling out, asking me to pull over... and I kept driving. The next time her step-dad wasn't there. Just her, Drippy and Bean. Mom and Dad let them stay with us. In the night they stole our supplies, blew our ignition, and ran away. Next morning, while my parents were figuring out what to do, I was keeping watch. I saw her. Nell. She was alone. Hurt. She had nothing on her, even her clothes were... She just stopped, right there in the road. I called for Mom and Dad. They were right there... but then the walkers came... I lost her after that... I lost everything after that."

“But... you’re friends.”

"What else are we supposed to be? She’s all I have left. The next time we found each other, we just... accepted it."

"How did you find each other again?"

"Was a few weeks after. I was starving, and I saw her running from the geeks. I almost didn't recognise her. Her hair was all cut. But, then I did recognise her and I went after her. I wanted to kill her. I wanted her to feel as sad as she had made me feel. And then I realised I already had. And I realised we were going to die, so... we just kept running."

"How'd you make it?"

"Bean. Showed up outa nowhere. Herded them away."

"Then you found this place?"

"More or less... I don't hate being her friend. I don't hate the fact that I know her. I just..."

"You just hate that you care. You hate that you love her. You hate that you love all of us. And worst of all... you hate that you can’t help it."

"I have to go."

"Enid..."

"It's how it works. It has to be just us. Me and her.”

“So you’re just going to leave?”

“I found her in Neverland before, I'll find her again."

"Don't tell us goodbye, Enid... Oliver —  he won't... He can't cope with another one."

"I'm not saying goodbye. I'm just telling you the truth."

* * *

 

_We are the reckless_   
_We are the wild youth_   
_Casing visions of our futures_   
_One day we’ll reveal the truth_   
_That one will die before he gets there..._

They are all dear or they are gone. On my walk home, I realise I don't want to be me anymore. Carol is sitting on the steps of Carl’s house, wearing a stolen trench coat, jeans, boots and a bandanna. A small, blood W drawn on her forehead. In her bloody hands, a packet of cigarettes sits pinched between her thumb and index. I know what she's been doing. I can see it. The possum has woken up.

She looks at me and her silver eyes are rusting. We don’t talk. I just sit behind her on the step up, lean into her shoulders, and close my eyes. Against my cheek, she’s cold and coarse. I open my eyes and marked on the banister is a small A stamp.

Carol watches the man Carl and I killed earlier, still laying in the street. She looks at Mrs. Neudermyer, cracked open across her lawn. Carol rubs her forehead, the unlit cigarette between her fingers. She uses her sleeve. And then she starts to cry, planting kisses like seeds over my wrist like she’s afraid I might suddenly disappear.

 _It follows us,_ I think.

Finally, Carol leaves along the street and I go back inside. Carl tells me that I have a black eye and I decide not to tell him someone tried to drown me. I tell him I killed some of them. I tell him that I killed some of us, too, and he hugs me because I’m crying.

“Where’s Judy?” I ask.

“Upstairs,” he says.

"And Enid?"

He pulls back. He shows me a note.

_just survive somehow..._

* * *

 

Later, I go to the pantry to wait for Nell to return. I want to be the one to tell her that Enid left. I want to be there when she decides to go after her, and I want to be the one to go with her. I’m so angry at her — Enid came to say goodbye and we didn't let her and now she's gone away.

_Like Peter Pan: ‘Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting.’_

“She didn’t say goodbye," I whisper to myself. "She’s not going away. She’s not forgetting."

It’s hours before they come back.

"Scott, hang in there."

"Heath, you got hold of him?"

"Yeah. Noah, grab this!"

"Open up!"

"Denise, his leg. He was shot."

"Bring him in."

I can't hear anymore because they're inside the infirmary. I can't hear a lot of things. I can't hear Glenn or Daryl or Nell or Sasha or Abraham or Nicholas or David or Sturgess or Adrian. I feel sick. I feel like I'm drowning.

"Oliver?"

"Noah. Hey, man."

Very suddenly, I realise something. “Those intruders...” I say. “They were at Shirewilt — the truck you told us about, filled with chopped-up walkers. 'W's on their foreheads. They killed your family.”

“Yeah,” he says. He’s crying very hard. "I think they call themselves Wolves."

"Wolves not far," I say. "Saw that once, written on a wall."

Noah nods and rubs his eyes. Streaming. I don't ask why. Don’t want to.

"I'm sorry about what happened to your family, Noah."

When the first set of hiccups take over, they are like a wave — overpowering him. I look away.

"Oliver... I gotta tell you something."

“That’s okay.”

“Please, man...” Noah holds his mouth, like he might burst. "Nell... she...”

“I don’t want you to say anything else.”

“We were holed up in a pet store. When we got out, there were... She... I'm sorry," Noah says, choking on it. "There were too many."

I shudder.

"Oliver, I'm so sorry," Noah cries. "She hurt her ankle. Before. I... I tried. But she fell. She fell right through my hands. She told us to run. There... There was nothing I could do."

I walk away.

"Oliver," Noah sobs. "Oliver, man, please..."

"It's okay," I say. "I just have to go home."

"I'm sorry."

Living inside of my body has always been difficult for me, but the reasons for this have changed over time. I don’t know why it’s so hard right now. I just know that I don’t feel like I’m inside of myself. I don’t feel like I reach into my toes or my fingers. I’m all lumped up and gloopy. 

I stumble up steps. Inside. Up into Carl’s room and into Carl’s arms and I’m kneeling there clutching his chest. He’s asking what's wrong and I’m telling him I'm alright and then I can't breathe. "Hey, hey, hey, hey," he says. I hear him through my skin and I say, "I can't breathe. I can't breathe. _I can't breathe._ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was Youth by Daughter.
> 
> Super special thank you to The Misfit Writer for giving me that awesome interview about the story and making those lovely Caliver virtual space pages. Thank you!
> 
> RIP Penelope Rostenkowski
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	84. Season 6 ~ Now, Part 1: Not Until You Know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a firm believer in experimentation. So this chapter will be written in past tense and third person.

Rick returned with a horde of walkers on his tail. “Open the gate!” Where they came from: the quarry, after a truck blocking the exit deroaded in a landslide and the herd escaped, and the dry-run turned into a not so dry run.

Now, Alexandria was surrounded.

"You can hear it," Rick called out to the crowd inside the walls. Outside, walkers shrieked. "Some of you saw it... They got back here. Half of them. Still enough to surround us twenty-deep. Look, I know you're scared. You haven't seen anything like this. You haven't been through anything like this. But we're safe, for now. The panel the truck hit seems intact, we reinforced it just in case. Either way, the wall's gonna hold together... Can you?"

People bristled. Carl squeezed Oliver’s hand.

"The others," Rick added, "they're gonna be back."

"They're gonna be back," Rosita agreed.

"Daryl, Abraham, Sasha. They have vehicles," Rick explained. "They're gonna lead them away just like the others. And Glenn and Nicholas're gonna walk through the front gate after. They know what they're doing. And we know what we need to do. We keep noise to a minimum. Pull our blinds at night — even better, keep the lights out. Try to make this place as quiet as a graveyard, see if they move on."

"This place is a graveyard," Francine admitted.

"The quarry broke open," Aaron interjected. "And those walkers were heading this way. All of them. The plan that Rick put into place stopped that from happening. He got half of them away."

He started to fidget, holding his pack. It was bloody.

"I was, out there, recruiting with Daryl. I wanted to... try to get into a cannery and scavenge. Daryl wanted to keep looking for people. We did what I wanted. And we wound up in a trap, set by those people, and I lost my pack."

Realisation swept across the crowd.

"They musta followed our tracks," Aaron confessed. "Those people who attacked us. They found their way back here because of me."

"There'll be more to talk about," Rick said, sparing him.

"Deanna?" Tobin said.

She was walking away, stiff and broken like an old rag-doll. Rick walked away too, telling them all to keep safe, to try to help around the place as much as they could, and everyone started to go on their way.

Carol stepped over. She nodded to Noah as he headed home, then looked at Oliver. His skin was dirty. His eyes were bagged. His face, scarred and bruised. She asked him, "You gonna come with?"

"Gotta find Bean," he said.

"Okay," she said. “Come home soon.”

And then she was gone.

The growls went on. The wall rattled.

"Oliver?" Carl whispered. "Let's go..."

* * *

 

They found Bean sitting on the girl's porch. After collecting all his things inside the house, they left with him — Carl patted his leg but the dog wouldn’t come, so they had to use a belt as a lead. Bean trailed behind on the walk home, at the end of his slack as they followed the wall along the lake.

Oliver stopped, lugging a dog bed, watching three women painting names on the wall:

IN OUR MEMORY

DENISH  
JEFFERY  
CARTER  
HOLLY  
SHELLY  
RICHARDS  
HELEN  
STACY  
MICHAEL  
BARRY

BOBBY  
NELL  
SAMANTHA  
PARK  
CHARLYNE  
ÓHARA  
DAVID  
STURGESS  
ADRIAN  
NICHOLAS  
GL

"You're putting names up there?" Oliver asked.

Carl thought of all those months ago when he’d confronted the kids at the prison with a similar question.

"We're paying respect," Harriet said. “Remembering them.” She had brown, curly hair, and wore a long, washed-out flannel shirt. She finished the last few letters on Glenn's name.

"Oliver..."

"No." He took a step forward. "You don't know they’re dead."

They turned to him. Óhara's mom looked exhausted.

"You don't know!" Oliver shouted.

"Whoa... hey..." Aaron walked over from the other side of the street. "What's going on?"

"They're lying," Oliver gasped. "They're lying. We don't know they're dead."

"Oliver," Carl tried.

" _We don't!_ "

Aaron tried to take his shoulder but Oliver didn’t let him. He went to the wall and rubbed some of words away. Black came off and stained his fingers. Aaron grabbed him. Oliver let him, because he’d taken his amp. Gently, Aaron led him across the street. Carl followed, thinking about the name ‘Michael’ on the wall.

They stopped by the lake.

Oliver glared at the ground, breathing hard, pacing. Aaron said his next sentence like it was the hardest thing he'd ever said in his life.

“Nell is dead.”

"I know!" Oliver yelled. "I... I know."

"Then why're—"

"Nicholas... Glenn."

"They didn't come back. Michonne said..."

"I know what she said," Oliver argued. "I know how it looks. I do. But you don’t know. Not until you know. They aren’t gone until they’re gone."

Aaron looked out over the lake. Maggie was assembling a metal rod with some kind of fixture tied on each end. She walked off without noticing at them.

"Nobody gets left behind," Oliver said, his eyes wet and blood-shot.

Aaron just nodded and let it go. He left. As the boys left, too, Barbra called out to Oliver.

“Thank you,” she said, “for saving me before.”

Oliver nodded, then walked away.

* * *

 

Later that afternoon, Oliver was in Judith’s room. Carl was glad for some time to himself. Noah was outside. Rosita was around the community somewhere, and Carol was baking in the kitchen. It had become apparent to Carl that after today, everybody wasn't really ready to come out of themselves yet. Not even he was. He was thinking of that wolf he shot. Even after this long, killing made Carl want to crawl right out of himself. He kept having to remind himself of what Michonne had told him outside Terminus that day: You’re not a monster.

Finally, he’d had enough of being inside his own head, so he crossed the room to the kitchen where he caught Carol spying on Oliver and Judith through the baby monitor. He cleared his throat. Carol jumped, sighed, then put the monitor down. Carl looked. Oliver was in the cot with Judith, curled up with his long, gangly legs dangling over the rails and Judith fast asleep on his chest, reading his notebook. Had been reading it since returning.

"Here." Carol held out Bean's bowl, something steaming inside.

"Smells good."

“Take it to him? I’m going out.”

“Okay.”

Bean wouldn’t eat. Finally, Carl left the dog in the living room and went upstairs. His bedroom was dim and smelt muggy and stale. Oliver must’ve heard him coming up, because he came in not long later and laid down in bed with him.

"Saw Mikey’s name on the wall," Carl said.

Oliver didn’t say anything.

"You knew that already though, huh?"

Oliver shut his notebook.

"Does Ron know Enid left yet?" he asked.

"I don't know," Carl answered. “She...”

“What?”

I tell him what Enid told me, about how they met, and how they ruined each other’s lives. I say, “Before she left, she said she’d find Nell again. She said that she found her in Neverland before, and that she'd find her there again. She doesn’t even know..."

Oliver sat up suddenly. He began flipping through pages. Carl caught a glimpse and Oliver snatched the notebook out of view. Carl frowned at him.

"You're reading Nell’s notebook?"

"I found it open on her bed."

Carl grimaced.

"She didn't write it like a diary. I wouldn't read it if it was a diary."

"And that makes it okay?"

"No. I mean..."

"Oliver."

"There's stuff in here," Oliver said. He presented a page. "Look..."

"I don't want to."

“Please, Carl.”

He sighed, looked. A map was drawn across the page. Places were labelled like 'Train Track' and 'The Creek' and 'Ollie's House'. "The left page is torn out."

Oliver nodded. "Look at the top."

Carl read out: "VERLAND?"

"The last half of Neverland."

"So?"

"She called Lorton Neverland."

"Yeah," Carl said. "I got that. But..."

"She'll find her in Neverland," Oliver said, then shook the book. "I found this on Nell's bed when we went to get Bean's things. Nell never leaves it out. It's either hidden or in her pocket."

"So?"

"So..." Oliver said, "Enid got to it before me. Tore the page out because it had Nell's house on it, then left it for Nell to find and get the clue and go after her again — find her in Neverland... That's where Enid's going? To wait for her?"

"Oliver, you gotta calm down before you get carried—"

"I wanna go home."

Carl looked at him. He said, “No.”

Oliver grimaced." _'One day...'_ That's what you said to me. Remember? You said, 'We'll go home.'"

“Yeah, to put your parents down!" Carl yelled. "This isn’t the same thing. Look, I get it, okay? You're sad, and you're angry, and you're mourning. But we have things to do here. We have people to protect."

Oliver watched him. Very calmly, he said, “That’s why I’m going alone."

“Like crap you are.”

“Carl... I have to. Please.”

He sighed, and after a long time of glaring that turned into staring that turned into watching that turned into nodding, finally, Carl spoke: "Tell me your plan, Oliver."

* * *

 

A little before dark, Carl went to talk to Ron. He could hear the shoves and growls behind the walls. Ron was sitting outside his house, stabbing the ground with his knife. Carl knew Ron. He knew he could lose his temper — once they fought because Carl didn’t want to drink with him, so he called him a pussy, and when Carl told him to shut up Ron slapped him across the face. They didn’t talk for an hour. In the end, Carl just switched on Ron’s Xbox and Ron watched him play, then joined in and everything was fine again.

"Hey..."

Ron looked up, yanked his blade out of the ground and twirled it in his hand, then drove it back down.

"You okay?" Carl asked.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Ron replied.

Sighing, Carl went over to him.

"I gotta talk to you. About Oliver and Enid."

"What, they run away with each other again?"

Carl tensed up. "You know about that?"

Ron grimaced, but didn't say anything.

Carl sighed and tried to change subject: "Did Enid talk to you before she left?"

"Haven't seen her. Not since I saw her with you two."

"We think she went over the wall,” Carl said, “before the herd came, and... now she's trapped out there."

Ron double took at him. He shook his head. "What makes you think she isn't dead?"

"Come on, man..."

Ron squinted up at him, sheathing his blade. He got up and walked away.

"Look," Carl tried again, "we're gonna go find her, we just need your help." He threw his thumb over his shoulder. "We're gonna wait for—"

"I'm not helping you, Carl."

"This isn't for me," Carl said. "It's for Enid. Your friend."

"My  _girl_ friend," Ron argued, swatting his hands, "or I mean, 'cause she _was_ anyway, right?"

"So you wanna just leave her out there?"

" _God._ What is your problem, faggot?" Ron asked, jamming a finger into his chest.

Carl blinked and stepped back. Ron pushed him.

"God, don't you see?" he said. "Don't you understand what they've been doing?"

"He told me," Carl explained.

"What?" Ron asked. "That they've been screwing behind our backs? That they make fun of us? And you're still with him!"

"That's not what happ—"

"You follow him around like a sheep."

"Shut up,” Carl hissed. “You don't know what you're talking about."

"No," Ron said. " _You_  don’t. You have no idea how much damage you've done! Everything you touch turns to shit! You just come in... wreck my family... kill my dad?"

Carl steeled himself, his face hard.

Ron seemed to calm down a little. "I told her to stop going over the wall. I told her there's bad people out there. And that it is stupid, and dangerous."

"Not if you know what you're doing."

"Well I'm not gonna let you go," Ron said.

Carl saw the dark circles under his eyes. He saw the way the collar of his hoodie was discoloured and how parts of his hair was starting to mat. He felt sorry for him, so he turned on his heel and left Ron alone.

"Carl,” Ron insisted. “Carl, you guys aren't going out there." He caught the edge of Carl’s sleeve, but Carl span around and shoved him.

"Back off!"

Ron pushed his chest and Carl staggered, fought back, shoving and grabbing and yanking. Carl had never been in a real fight before. Not with fists. It wasn’t like wrestling with Oliver. He didn’t know what to do to make Ron stop. He was so angry, and older, and his dad had just died, and his girlfriend had just left him without saying goodbye. But it turned out that Carl was angrier, and stronger, and he'd killed his mom a long time ago, and his boyfriend was risking his life and there was nothing he could do about it... and all of that anger came out through his palms and Ron his the ground so hard that the air was knocked out of his chest.

He lay on his back, coughing and wheezing.

Carl walked away.

"I'll tell your dad!" Ron groaned. "He'll go out there to find you and then other people will too and then somebody's gonna die."

Carl stopped.

"Huh?" Ron asked.

Carl turned to him.

Ron looked exhausted. "You saved my life and now I'm saving yours."

Shaking his head, Carl left.

* * *

 

He found Oliver in his room.

“He won’t help us,” he says. “I tried, but he won’t help us.”

He sat on the bed and scowled at his knees.

“What happened?" Oliver asked.

"We had a fight."

“Are... you alright?”

“He called me a faggot.”

Oliver looked sorry. Even sorrier when Carl asked what it meant and he had to explain it. Carl was hurt. Not because of the word but because Ron had used it — after everything, he did that and he didn’t have to.

“He told me something else,” Carl whispered. "If we go out ther, Dad'll come to find us, and others will, too... and then somebody's gonna die.”

Oliver looked at him.

“He's right," Carl said. “We can’t go out there, Oliver.”

“Then we won’t,” Oliver said — he didn't seem angry.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

Carl was so taken aback that he didn’t even react when Oliver kissed him. He pulled back and looked at him. “Are you sure?”

Oliver kissed him.

"Oliver."

He kissed him again.

Carl pushed him.

"Are you sure,” he asked again. “Please, tell me you’re sure."

"Your dad'll go after you," Oliver said, his face blank, eyes heavy.

"But... tell me you're sure."

Oliver pressed their foreheads, climbed onto his lap, and kissed him. It was a strong sort of kiss, the sort of kiss that makes it hard to keep thinking about anything else. Carl let himself get lost in that feeling — that feeling like he was making Oliver happy, that he was helping him feel alright again, that feeling like making Oliver feel alright again was still possible. Only, when he woke up sometime later, Oliver was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got another story here. Fear the Walking Dead. It's called Quinn, about a non-binary teen. Happy reading.


	85. Season 6 ~ Now, Part 2: The Boy and the Dog

_Here I go_   
_No, I can’t be around you anymore_   
_Just turn around and let me walk away_

_So just close your eyes and I’ll close mine_   
_Honey, close your eyes, it just takes time_   
_And we’ll be alright, we’ll be alright_

_Cause I’m such a total zombie_   
_And you’re gold, honey_   
_I wish I would have been told_   
_Only a fool would want me_

_And falling and falling  
And bringing you underground..._

Carl was right — Rick would go after him if he came with me. But he won’t come after me. Nobody will. I’m nobody’s son. Or brother. I’m just some kid. They’ve had to make worse choices before.

Bean follows me across Alexandria. We pass Betsy and David’s house, except it’s only Betsy’s house now because David died on the run yesterday, except it isn’t Betsy’s house anymore either, because she’s dead and growling against the window, two vertical slices along her wrists. Jessie puts her down and talks out to the crowd of people, but I keep walking.

"Oliver?"

I stop, turn. Denise is following me, too.

"It's been a few days, uh...” She’s wringing her hands. “Do... do you want to come do rehabilitation exercises?"

I shake my head and she asks me if I’m alright, and I think my blood is turning to mud. I think my reflection is trying to kill me. I'm chasing a ghost because too many of them won't leave me alone.

"Oliver?"

"Hm."

"What're you doing?"

"Walking..." I point at Bean.

She leaves me to it. After a few minutes I find where Nell marked the sewer grid in her notebook. She'd marked every sneak-spot, even the updated ones since I got here. Next to the map-sewer there is a message: _‘See three pages forward’_ and three pages on is a rough, unfinished map of the underground sewer system, with missing parts and lots of question marks.

This hadn’t been Carl and my original plan, but at least this way I won’t get caught.

I unclasp the grid, yank it up, and set it aside. I check nobody’s watching, then look down into the sewer and see nothing... and, perhaps, It, down there, lurking around in the blackness, like in the book; I read It back at the prison. _“We float, Ollie, and when you're down here with me, you'll float, too!”_

I shiver, snatch my flashlight and point it down. It grins back at me, ready to unzip my guts, except the sewer is empty and wet and not full of shapeshifting monsters, so I put my legs over the edge.

I pull them back when I remember Bean is still here. I tell him to go, but he doesn’t, so I grab him and lower him down into the sewer and he whimpers and grunts and then when he’s as low as I can get him, lying flat on my stomach with both my arms down and around him, I drop him, hear him yelp and splash and see with my flashlight his eyes peering up at me patiently.

_Your turn._

“Okay,” I say, and climb down, linking my arm around the ladder while I pull the grid over again. At the bottom, Bean greets me with a lot of pawing. The cement under my boots is squishy and slimy and I look around, heart pounding. Without my flashlight all I’d be able to see is the lines of evening light coming in through various sewer grids. I clip my flashlight to my backpack strap —something Carol sewed for me— so I can use my hand to take out Nell’s notebook and hold it up to the light: _Second right, then left, then follow it to the junction._

Dripping, sloshing water and Bean’s panting is the only noise. No growling.

I take a deep breath. "C'mon, man. Let's go..."

* * *

 

"Dad!"

"Carl, keep it down."

"Dad, he's gone."

“What’s wrong? Who—"

"Oliver. I can't find him. I think he's gone after Enid."

"What?! When did you last see him?"

"I'm not sure. A while ago. He left while I was asleep. His stuff's gone."

"Ron, get someone to keep watch. Carl, tell me what you know?"

"Nothing. I don’t — I... I didn't know he'd go without me.”

“You were going to go, too?”

"We were gonna go over the wall. We were gonna wait for it to get dark. He was gonna volunteer to go on watch and then I was gonna meet him."

"How do you know he hasn't done that?"

"He took the torches but the walkies are still here. I checked. Bean's gone, too... Dad, I'm sorry."

“Goddammit, son! You woulda gotten yourself killed! Stay here and look after your sister."

* * *

 

Bean and I find the junction. The map highlights a sealed crankset door. Only, when I find it, it’s wide open. Two walkers lay outside, sunk under the sewer water and dead. They've been down here for a while, but they were killed recently — the splashes are still wet and dripping. I think of the wolves and take out my knife, following the tunnel, and not long later, I hear voices.

"No! It's over!" It’s Maggie. I hold Bean back and listen. "I'll burn his last picture of me. Because I said I wasn't gonna need it anymore. Because I was never gonna be away from him again."

There are walkers close by, too, bashing against metal. I follow the noises until I can peek around a corner to see Maggie and Aaron at the end of the passage, standing before the exit gate, walkers shapes outside jutting through the sunlight. My chest sinks.

"I'm pregnant,” Maggie tells Aaron. “He didn't want me to go out there and I said yes, and if I woulda gone — if I was with him, maybe I coulda helped him." Her voice is high and thick and shaking. "I don't know if he's alive. He would've shown me by now — that's what Michonne said... I just wanted to see his face. I can't... I don't get to know what will happen. I don't get to know why it happened. What I did right or wrong. Not now. I have to live with that and you do, too."

I don’t feel well. My brain is too full. I don’t know what I do but I must make some noise because the sewer is silent.

“Hello? Who’s there?” Maggie and Aaron round the corner, aiming their weapons. "Oliver?!" Maggie drops her weapon and rushes up to me. "Oliver, what are you doing here?"

"I... I can't be here. I have to go home."

"Oliver..." Maggie has tears and murky water streaking down her face. She tries to reach out to me, but I move away, tripping over Bean.

Aaron takes my arm, pulling me from the grey-water.

"I gotta go home,” I tell him, “you don't understand—"

"Okay, we'll go home."

"No, I have to... I have to put them down — you don't understand."

Maggie wraps her arms around me, and then I'm crying. I'm not sure of everything I do or everything that happens. I just know that Maggie is holding me, and I know that I don't get to decide what will happen in the future. I don't get to save Enid or stop Nell from becoming a story. I don't get to go home and put my parents down, or atone for leaving them behind. I'll never know why they all had to die, or what I did right or wrong, or how I could've saved any of them. Not now. And I have to accept that and live with it. And that’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.

* * *

 

Carl doesn’t speak to me when I get back, and after a long, miserable shower, Rick and Carol spend almost the whole evening reprimanding me. They pace before me and tell me how stupid I was, how I could've died, and finally when they're done, Rick leaves for work.

Carol watches me across the room.

"Oliver?"

I don’t look at her.

"You haven't talked about what happened,” she says.

 _Neither have you,_ I think back.

Sometimes it's hard talking to her. We used to be able to read each other like a book, but I’ve torn out pages on her, and... I think she has on me, too.

Outside, Tara and Denise are talking. I don't know Denise well, just that she cauterised my arm and that’s the only lasting memory I have of her. It’s odd, seeing her do normal human things, like walking down the street, carrying books. Then she and Tara kiss and go next door together.

"Oliver..." I look at Carol. She’s at the front door. “Come outside.”

I do.

"I'm not gonna stand back while — oh, Bean!" He slips between her legs and runs down the street. Carol groans, but chooses not to run after him. "Dammit."

"He just wants to go home," I say.

She watches me.

I glare at the floor.

"You want me to tell you what I did today?" she asks, pacing up and down the porch. "Will that make it easier for you? Make you realise you don't have to run away?"

"I didn't run away."

"But you're hurting."

 _You're not playing possum properly,_ I think. _I can see you, and you're small and scared and angry and alone._

I push my back against the panel wall and dig his heels into the floor.

"This is how it starts," Carol says. "You hurt and then you run. And every time it gets harder to come back."

A beetle on the deck crawls towards me, almost makes it under the chair, but I squash it under my boot.

"Oliver."

I look up at her.

"I know what I’m talking about," she says, "you saw me go through it."

"I didn't run away."

Carol thinks for a second. "Erin. She was my friend and I killed her today. Put a knife through the back of her head because she was dying and I couldn’t help her. And it still hurt."

I just frown at the squashed beetle.

"Oliver," Carol whispers. She keeps saying my name like that, like she isn't sure I am anymore. "You don't bury yourself like this. You have to let yourself feel it."

"Why?" I ask. "I'm fighting it. Like you always say."

"Please?" she says.

 _Please._ I hate that word. For something said so much, it’s hardly ever listened to. Not when I said it to that claimer. Not when Carol and I left that Termite for the walkers. Not even Mikey, when he begged me not to kill him.

"Oliver,” she whispers, “tell me what happened?"

I glance at her, feeling wrecked.

"I don't remember a lot of it,” I explain. “I just had to do it. I had to put him down. He was dying. And... it was hard, doing it with one hand. I had to hold him down and get to the back of his head at the same time. But I did it because I had to."

Carol tries to hug me, but I step away and shake my head. "Don’t,” I say, “I... I did what I had to do. It's how it works."

Just then we realise Morgan is watching us from the porch next door, only for a few seconds before disappearing inside.

"You won't say his name," Carol whispers over the faint growling past the walls. "You won't because it hurts too much to."

"Mikey." I grit my teeth. "Michael Lloyals. What difference does it make, he's dead now."

Carol sighs. "Somebody else's slide show."

I frown.

She frowns back. "This isn't you, Oliver." She reaches out and touches my arm. "This isn't who you are. You're not this."

I’m not what? A murderer? A monster?  
Because, yes, Carol.

"I am," I say. “We all change. That's what you told Lizzie; she told me. We all change and that's how it is now."

"Yes," she says, meaning it. "But that doesn't mean you have to do it alone."

"You do,” I say, and I know I'm hurting her feelings, but I keep going. "I noticed, Carol. I noticed that you’re trying not to get to close to us — to me... and I accepted it. I accepted it for you! And I thought it would help. But it didn’t. It never helped. So I’m making it easy for you. You don’t have force yourself to care. I'm done pretending. I'm done kidding myself. I'm not happy here, and you... are _not_ my family."

It hurts worse out of my head but I let it stay there. Carol stares at me. I know she's never going to forgive me. I tell myself that's good. That'll make it hurt less. But it still hurts. It hurts so bad I want to die.

Somebody clears their throat on the side walk. Carol startles and looks around. It's Spencer. His hands are in his pockets.

"Spencer?" Carol says.

"Hey, so... did a dog just run me over or am I still drunk?"

"Excuse me?"

"I'm kidding," he says to her, even though he does look spacey. "But I did see Bean a second ago."

"Yeah, sorry." Carol clears her throat. "He's not adjusting very well here." I notice the look she gives me as she says that.

"Yeah," Spencer says. "Look, uh, Oliver... I'm sorry about Nell."

I don’t say anything, so Carol says, "Thanks; for what you did today in the guard tower, too."

Spencer dips his head; today, when the truck drove into the wall and set off the horn, Spencer was who shot the driver and stopped the gates from being flattened.

He leaves, and Carol doesn’t seem to want to say anything else to me, so I go upstairs to my room. Inside, Noah is crying, wiping his face when he sees me. Ignoring him, I cross the room. I can hear the walkers outside through the window, so I yank the dictionary out from where it’s been wedged in the gap, and the noise goes away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was Total Zombie by Day Wave.
> 
> I SHIP TARNISE SO FUCKING MUCH.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	86. Season 6 ~ Heads Up, Part 1: This Moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The moment will come when kids can just be kids again. And this might just be that moment.

_‘The moment will come when kids can just be kids again.  
But this is not that moment.’_

Early the next morning, when it’s still dark and everybody's still sleeping, I spend a while sitting on the grass between mine and Carl’s house, reading Nell's notebook. I've limited myself to two pages every day. That way I won’t read it all in a fortnight.

_‘There was this moment. It came along in the shortest and strangest circumstance. Peter returned from Neverland and Wendy remembered how to fly again, and they danced the sun back into the sky together.’_

I think of the night she came to my window, how we danced together in the empty house. I didn't know that it would be our last time flying together.

I glance at the wall, listen to the dead outside it, then look at the house next door and see Carl watching me from the porch. We haven’t spoken since yesterday. He steps down and sits next to me on a space I make with my hoodie. The morning dew and dirt sticks to our palms and jean legs.

"The walls are bleeding."

“Yeah...”

"Have you eaten yet?"

I shrug.

“I don’t know what your shrugs mean today,” Carl says, which I figure is an odd thing to say, like maybe Carl thinks I have a daily shrugging language and today he just isn’t fluent in it.

A gust suddenly blows through Alexandria, throwing his hair around his face. Mine too. We left our hats inside. In the wind I smell the rot. It ripples Carl's shirt and I want to reach out and hold it down, keep it from getting him — want so bad my eyes water.

I clutch Nell's notebook.

"Don't."

I frown at him. "What?"

"Don’t go away like that."

_‘Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting...’_

Carl looks at me and whispers my name and that is all it takes for me to fall apart apologising. He tells me it’s fine, that he gets it, but he doesn’t and I tell him, "I thought it would be easier. I thought it wouldn't hurt so bad if it was just me. You wouldn't be in danger and Rick wouldn't let you follow me and Carol would know it was best not to. I thought I could just... not matter. I thought I could go find her and bring her back. I wanted to know. I wanted to go home, and really know."

"Know what?"

"I just... I want it all not to be my fault. I want Mom and Dad not to be angry at me for what I did."

Carl stares at me, mouth opening and closing until he speaks. "What happened... wasn't your fault. Oliver, they... they'd be so proud of you."

I shut my eyes and shake my head.

“I’m so sorry you lost them,” he tells me.

That gets me. Messes me up. But it feels good to cry over it.

"I’m sorry that the only family you have is the family you’ve met along the way,” Carl goes on, like he knows all the right words to say to me. “But it doesn't make us count any less. You know that. You've said so yourself. When did you lose that? What happened that made you not even believe it anymore?"

It was murdering people. It was getting hunted by the dead and the living alike, and losing my friends, killing them. But saying this is too difficult, the words swelling in my chest, until I feel like bursting.

"I don't want to do it anymore."

There’s a loud clash against the wall as I say this. We flinch and stare at it. Without looking away, Carl asks, “Don’t say that.”

"I just... I wanna go home,” I explain. “I wanted to go home with Penelope, but she died, so I thought Enid could be like her. But she’s not. They’re just another story in my head. And... I don't wanna watch you turn into a story, too. I don’t want to be alone one day."

He hugs me.

"You are so... loved, Oliver,” he says, and has to wait a long time for me to stop crying. “I know why you did it. I probably would've done the same thing. Just, promise me that if you do it again you'll take me with you. I mean it. I'll only follow you. I was getting ready to."

“You were?”

He nods. “Promise me.”

"Okay."

He locks us into a pinky promise.

"Heard what you said to Carol, last night, about Mikey," Carl says. "I think I knew. Just... I wish I’d been there, maybe it would have been easier."

"I don't want to talk about it anymore, if that's okay."

Carl accepts this.

"Here."

He raises his hands.

"Know Patty Cake?"

"Yeah...” I say.

“Play with me."

“With one hand?”

“You’ll manage.”

I sigh. "Can't you just give me head like a normal boyfriend?"

Carl punches me. “Later.”

I raise my hand and arm.

"Okay," he says, and for good measure strokes a thumb over my wrist. "Ready?"

Resigning myself, I shrug.

_"Patty cake, p—"_

I mess up. "Sorry."

"Keep going," Carl says.

_"—patty cake, baker's man. Bake me a cake as fast as you can."_

"Carl."

"What?"

"I'm no good at this."

"Quit being a baby, you're fine."

I put my arms down. He frowns. I frown back.

"I'm no good at this,” I repeat. “And I’m not a baby. I don't want to waste time pretending to have fun. That's what kids do, man."

Carl watches me, then stands up.

"I don't know the rest of the song anyway," he says, pulling me up. "C'mon."

"What're we doing?"

Carl kisses my eyelids one at a time, and very softly, says, "Trying harder."

* * *

 

In the hallway of my house, Carl and I sit and share a mug of basil and minestrone soup and a bottle of water, with a flashlight propped up against his knee to face the ceiling for light.

"Feel better?"

"Err...”

"Keep hugging you pillow," he tells me.

He made me wear my beanie — even found his old Stetson, and what we're doing now is next in his  _How to make Oliver feel better_  book. I like to imagine that this book is a hardback biography titled:

 _How to Oliver_  
_by_  
_Carl Jeffrey Grimes_

The title of the first chapter would read:

_Chapter 1: Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, and Oliver is from Mercury_

I think that I’m very sad, even if I haven’t quite noticed it. Sometimes, I think, I feel so sad that I feel nothing. And I think that’s what is happening now. It’s strange to know this about myself. It’s strange that someone else can tell, too.

Carl slurps from the mug and observes my technique; hugging pillows is one of his favourite solitary pass-times, apparently. I'm not sure how I didn't know this. Perhaps Carl is a closet inanimate-object-hugger. I have images in my head of him wrapped around bedside tables, curtains and desks — these images, to me, are supremely funny, even though I’m frowning into cotton. I inhale through the memory foam, then I open my eyes and see Carl still watching me.

"Okay," I whisper, "does feel kinda good."

Carl hands me the mug and tells me to have the last of it.

"I probably won’t keep it down," I warn.

"Eat it slowly then. Even a little is better than none."

I comply, sipping and hugging and breathing, until the mug is empty and my stomach isn't showing signs of trying to evacuate its contents. The sun is coming up. Carl switches the flashlight off and stands up, groaning Rickly. He looks around at the pinks and blues leaking into the corners of the landing, something peaceful in his eyes like the look he has when Judith yawns. He turns to me, signals for me to follow him, and I leave my pillow outside my door so I don’t disturb Noah putting it back inside, and then we're downstairs on the front porch.

"Take your shoes off," Carl says.

I frown. Do as told. He removes his, too.

"Socks, Oliver."

"But I'm wearing them."

"It'll be worth it."

"They're my favourite pair."

He looks down at them. "They're odd. You never wear odd socks."

"I'm trying something new," I say. "I have two favourite pairs now." The left's rainbow striped and the right has pug faces. "I figured why not wear them at the same time.”

Carl’s looking at me like I’m sick. I pick up my foot and wiggle my toes.

"How can you say no to these little guys? With their smushed faces and bulgy eyeballs? And the rainbows are expressive... of how gay I am... for you... even though a lot of girls are neat too... well, people in general are pretty neat, but... I don’t have that colour sock... so... these work as an umbrella—"

“Oliver, stop talking."

“Okay.” I yank them both off and tuck them into themselves and leave them in my shoes. When I start tucking the shoe-laces behind the tongues, Carl grabs my shirt-shoulder and pulls me down the steps.

We hold hands and press shoulders and talk and walk barefoot through the grass between our houses, feeling the blades between our toes and it's soft and cold and dewy and something I've never thought of doing before. It's amazing. In this moment. And I get this feeling. One I’ve had before, with Enid, that day we ran through the forest. Like my chest is burning up and this crazyterrible, pent-up, bursting energy is trapped in my hand and I don't know what to do with it, only I do...

_The moment will come when kids can just be kids again.  
And this might just be that moment._

"Carl?”

“Yeah.”

“I have an idea..."

"Run."

Flying across the community. Racing around the gazebo. Chasing through the streets. Pulling and twisting and laughing. Finally, we’re running the last stretch home and the sky is blue and purple and the clouds look like cotton candy as we crash in through Carl’s front door together. The warm house prickles our skin. I double forward against the kitchen island. Carl walks off his adrenaline rush in the living room.

“Need your inhaler?”

"Oddio!” I clutch my chest. “Il mio cuore... it's gonna beat right out of my throat."

"I think you’re having fun," he says.

I laugh and moan and double forward again. I run my bandage over his hair and use my hand to take my inhaler. "Jesus shit!"

"It's good, huh?"

I’m nodding and laughing and rubbing the sweat away from my face and then I turn to him and step across the room and I kiss him. One of the deep, wild ones. We get lost in the kissing. Staggering and breathless and then somebody is heading down the staircase.

"Morning, boys."

We pull apart and try to look busy with island stools and sink taps. Michonne goes to the fridge. Carl kicks me under the counter. I thump him in the shoulder. Michonne looks at us, an apple in her mouth.

"How'd you sleep?" she muffles out.

We nod and mumble noises.

She finds this funny. "Well... I'm heading out for watch. Your dad'll be back soon. He'd probably like you two to do some chores or something. Dishes need doing."

"Okay,” Carl says. “We're on it."

Michonne nods and leaves.

We sit there for a while.

"We should get the dishes done."

Carl sighs, looking put out. "You dry, I'll wash."

We finish chores and head next door. Not a minute in, Noah curses from upstairs and a loud bang makes us all jump.

" _OLIVER!_ "

"Noah?"

"What the hell, dude?!" he shouts from upstairs.

I look at Carl and Judith across the living room.

"What did you do?" Carl asks.

"I don't know."

Rosita's in the kitchen and she scoffs, shaking her head and cutting into fruit. "Sounds like someone's in deep—"

"Cacca," I mutter, standing up nervously because Noah is rounding the staircase, glaring and rubbing the side of his face. I see the red mark there, and I see my pillow in his other hand. "Err, hey, man..."

"What the hell is your pillow doing right outside our freaking door?!"

"Oh, right. I..."

"You trying to disable me again?!"

"No," I say. "I didn't wanna wake you."

Noah throws it at me. "Quit leaving your crap around!"

"I... wait..."

"What's up with you?" Rosita asks him. "It's just a pillow."

He turns to me and points a finger. "Pick up your shit or I'll kick your ass!" Then, before anybody can say anything, Noah storms out the house, leaving a thick, empty space behind. I look at Carl, and he's about to say something but just as he opens his mouth Rick walks through the door.

"Hey," Carl greets him.

"Boys. Come outside."

"Why?"

"Handgun practice, with Ron," Rick answers.

“Err, I’m okay,” I say.

Rick chuckles dryly. “Y’don’t have a choice, son.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AwkwardlyMeOli, ALL of the Pan references are on YOU! YOUR fault! (And I adore you for it duh) Thank you, CodeName ANDY for the book title that won't make full sense to anybody but you :D
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	87. Season 6 ~ Heads Up, Part 2: PT

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Possible trigger warnings for self harm and eating disorders. It's not explicit, but be kind to yourselves.

Rick leads the three of us around the lake. The morning's become cloudy and the growling hasn’t gone away, but the spring flowers are starting to bloom through the overgrown grass.

Gabriel's taping up signs in the gazebo.

_PRAYER CIRCLE_   
_BY THE_   
_SOLAR PANELS_   
_TODAY_   
_AT_   
_1 : 00_

Rick tears them down.

"Dad..."

Carl's ignored, stops, and looks back at Gabriel, who’s taping up more signs as replacement, giving Carl a nod.

We meet by the west wall together, gathered around a wooden work- bench, where Rick begins our lesson — for Ron mostly. "Magazine release. Slide release. Thumb safety."

"That stuff's easy, right, Dad?"

"Yeah." He ejects the rounds. "Empty magazine. Empty chamber. See it?"

"Yep," Ron says.

Rick steps away from the table and faces the wall. He points his left, bandaged hand; yesterday he cut it on something. "If someone's in front of you, they have a gun..."

"You're gonna be scared," Carl says.

Ron regards him.

"You will be," Carl insists — I get this feeling like he never really got bullied at school, and hasn’t learned when to and when not to poke the bear. I thump his foot under the bench.

"Your body's gonna tense," Rick continues, "won't have time to think. You’re just gonna wanna pull the trigger." Rick squares up to the wall and plays out a sloppy draw. "But you'll miss, and you'll be dead." He withdraws, checks the safety. "You have to get it up to your eye." Again, he demonstrates, only this time his draw is quick and steady.

"You gotta be strong enough to wait for your moment," Carl adds, and I shut my eyes, figuring in my head that he just _wants_  to get beat on.

Ron’s looking at the floor. "Can I, uh?" he asks Rick, who hands him the handgun. Ron takes his place, squaring up to the wall, stretching, aiming.

"Hey..." Rick tugs his index back. "Your finger doesn't touch the trigger, 'til you're ready to shoot." He steps back.

Ron tries again, scrunching an eye. His posture's a little slouched and his grip’s loose, but overall, not bad. Better than I was.

_Better than you are now._

Ron pulls the trigger with a click, then drops his arm.

"Keep that one with you," Rick instructs. "Get a feel of what it's like to carry one around."

"Can I shoot it?" Ron asks. "You know... down at the walkers?"

"Not with things how they are," Rick answers. "Walls're strong. But we're lucky the walkers're spread out, we don't wanna pull them all to one spot."

For this tiny second Ron doesn't look like Ron anymore. Then he's back. "Well, what about, like, target practice in the centre of town? 'Cos the sound'll spread out in each direction... or we could use, like, silencers or something like that?"

Rick’s mouth twitches.

Ron catches on. "But uh... I mean, we probably don't wanna waste the bullets right now, huh?" Rick steps over to the table to get another handgun. Carl and I just try not to look awkward. "Just wanna learn more..." Ron admits.

"You will," Carl tells him.

"Oliver," Rick says. Standing up straight, I turn to him and tuck my arm into my hoodie pocket. "Haven't seen you use your gun yet."

I shrug. "Used it yesterday."

"How was it?"

 _Killing people?_  I think.  _Awful, thanks._

“How accurate?" he elaborates.

“Okay.”

"Can you show me? See if there's anything you can do to improve?" Rick tilts his head and waits a moment. "I know it sounded like a question, Oliver, but it wasn't."

I take the handgun, check the safety, and aim, squinting down the barrel; still feels weird, using the wrong hand, using the wrong eye. Rick steps over and places his hands on both of my biceps. He squeezes gently.

"Relax your shoulders. Might help if you take your arm outa your pocket." He steps into my eye-line, dipping his head. "G'on, Oliver."

I do, taking the empty shot several times before Rick is satisfied, and even then he asks me for more, until my cheeks are red and my jaw is clenched and my hand is shaking with Backward.

"Dad..."

Rick looks at his son, nods. "Alright, Oliver."

I drop my arm. The handgun hits the table with a clatter. Stuffing both arms in my pocket, I turn and walk away.

"Oliver."

"Later," I say, only it doesn’t sound right.

"Oliver, wait!" Carl follows me to the edge of the grass. "Wait a sec, would y..." He grabs my arm so hard it's pulled out of my pocket. He lets go immediately. "I'm sorry. I didn't... Your left one. I was aiming for... I didn't mean—"

"It's fine."

"I... I’ll take you home."

I'm not sure what happens to me but Carl seems to shrink then, very quickly. I’m shouting at him and telling him to fuck off and he steps back. I do, too, out of breath, then I turn and walk away.

* * *

 

I stay in the bathroom in my house, forcing myself to yack up every bad thought I can think of. Bean scratches at the door. I shout at him to go away. Breathing too hard. Hitting my amp against the bathtub. It hurts but in a terrible good way and I focus on that until the noise goes away. I’m bleeding. That’s fine. I wrap up. Sit. Cry... Sometime later, I’m lying in bed.

Somebody knocks.

"Oliver?" Carl asks.

“C’min."

He does. Sits on the bed. “Hey.”

“I didn’t mean to yell at you.”

“Okay. Dad wants to talk to you."

“Okay.”

Downstairs, Rick tells me that he wants me to go do physical therapy with Rosita, at the clinic. I try to get out of it but Rick takes my shoulders and walks me out of the house. "Might be worth asking her to check your asthma, too," he says along the way. "Carol mentioned you were struggling."

When we get there, Rick stands next to me. He hugs me. I frown into his shoulder, not sure what to do, even less sure when he kisses the top of my head. I pull away. I look up at him, but I don’t say anything.

Then he turns and walks away.

Bean is looking up at me.

"I don’t know what that was about either," I tell him. He gives me a paw that I ignore. Instead, I knock on the clinic door four times, only it’s none because Denise opens the door and walks right into me.

"Oh! Gosh!" she yelps. I stagger back. "Hey. Oliver. Hey." Bean sniffs her. She pets his neck. "What's up? I mean, uh, hello; how can I help you?"

“Is Rosita here?”

“No. Just left. I can help you?”

“I don’t know. My hand —my amp— is itching. I... I usually do PT with her.”

Denise nods. “Well... I’ve watched you do it together. And... I’m qualified...”

I shrug my elbows. In truth, I don’t care who does PT with me, just so long as Rick gets off my back about it. "I need an asthma review, too."

Denise blinks, nods. "Okay. Asthma review and PT. I can do both of those things!" She gestures for me to come inside. "Take a seat."

* * *

 

The clinic is clean and cosy — nicer than I give it credit for. Scott is sleeping in the bed across the room after treatment on a gunshot wound. Denise and I do PT for a while and it sucks. A lot of it is just stretching the scarring to help it heal. I keep complaining about the itching, and then Denise leaves to get something from her apartment to help, and I wait for a while, sitting by a tall stand with a board of notes on how to treat certain injuries; the primary survey; gun-shot; infection; head trauma; amputation; cauterization.

Grunting, Denise returns, lugging a large, long mirror against her chest. "I never thought about how weird it feels to stare at yourself while crossing the street,” she says, propping the mirror against the wall opposite me and taking a seat beside it.

I look at my reflection, understanding already that I don’t like it. I always look older than I picture myself. My hair’s always too mad and my underbite’s always too prominent and my nose is always too long. I don’t like the big bruise across my face, or the scars, all particularly dark-looking today.

Denise turns to me and clasps her fingers together. "Oh... I forgot about your chest. We should to that first." She retrieves a peak flow from a drawer and tells me, "Blow through this as hard as you can." I do — haven't since I was thirteen. "One hundred and sixty," she reads once I hand it back. "Oh... wow."

"What?"

"Do you feel like you're struggling?"

I shrug. "It's usually worse."

Again: "Wow."

"What am I supposed to be getting?"

"Four hundred. Four hundred and fifty. Technically, right now... you're having an asthma attack." I don't know why I find this so ironic. Denise makes a very anxious noise and goes across the room to a counter above the sink. "Here," she says, grabbing two inhalers. She gives them to me. "This one’s Neovent." The green one, a label on it saying it’s prescribed to a Kelly Mellor. "It'll keep your airways open for longer. This one is Clenis Modulite.” The brown one, prescribed for someone called Elliot Jackson. “It works kinda like the Ventolin but it just takes a little longer to kick in, but it lasts longer. Now, when you take them all, you should drink or eat something after so that the stuff doesn't stick to the back of your throat. It can give you sores."

"Why can't I just use my blue one?"

"Well, the Ventolin works fast. But it doesn't last long," she answers. "You're using it, what... few times a week?"

"Every day."

Her face drops. "How many times every day?!"

"A... few."

She looks like she's just bitten into something too hot, or cold — maybe it bit her back. "Okay, well, first off, it's _really_ not supposed to be used like that. At all. It desensitises you, so the more you use the less effective it'll be."

_...oh._

"It’s okay though," she tells me quickly, "we've got enough inhalers — more than enough."

I get this feeling like I just wasn’t meant to live this long, that I’m just some fluke that slipped under the universe’s dead-list.

"Alright, use the green and brown every morning and evening. Two puffs each."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"What if I need the blue one?"

She shakes her head. "Just, wait it out. Don't use the blue unless you absolutely have to. Your brown and green will do their job, it'll just take a little longer."

I take them now, the brown and green; green makes my lungs seize and the brown makes my throat burn.

"Just try not to think about it," she tells me, handing me water. "If you pass out, I'll give you a Nebulizer and make you a _sorry_  cake, okay?"

I accept this, wheezing like an old squeak toy.

"Where's this itch you mentioned?" she asks. I point to the space my hand should be. "In your fingers?" It takes me aback that she doesn't tell me it's all just in my head. Everybody tells me that. Even Carol.

I nod.

"Okay. So, I've been reading..." She grabs a book:  _Amputation, and Phantom Limb Pain._  "It's pretty common for amputee patients to feel their lost limb even though it's not there. What does it feel like now?"

"Like... something's pinching me," I explain. "Right on my palm, like I'm holding an angry crab or something."

"What you're doing now." She must see the muscles in my forearm moving. "Does it help?"

"No."

"Does it ever hurt?"

"Sometimes... Sometimes I wake up from it, like I'm getting bitten all over again. Sometimes it's so bad I yack."

"Does that happen often. Trouble sleeping?"

"Yeah."

"What about the yack... vomiting?"

Shrug.

"D'you throw up a lot? From the nightmares?"

I shake my head. Shrug.

"After meals?"

"I just... I find it hard to keep stuff down."

She’s writing something into a notebook she keeps in her pocket.

"It's just not very useful," I ramble. "There's not much food, so if I yack I waste, so I try not to eat, and... when I do eat, it makes me sick... and then, sometimes, if I just need to, I just yack.”

“On purpose?”

“I... I don't..."

"I can help, Oliver."

I don’t want her to so I stop speaking to her. It’s better not to.

"You know, my great gamps was a war veteran,” she tells me. “He lost his legs. Said that when he came back, after all the terrible stuff he'd seen, nothing ever felt the same. It was as though he’d brought the war home with him. He had PTSD. Had it all his life after that. He almost took his own life. But he had his family... and... I have to say... getting bit’s gotta be pretty traumatic, too, right? Like your own war you brought back? And everything else before that? And since?"

"I'm not crazy."

“Of course you aren’t.” She moves off her seat and kneels on the floor, gesturing me to join her. "C'mon. Sit next to me. We're gonna try mirror therapy now."

She props the mirror between my knees, the reflective side facing my left hand and the non-reflective side facing my amp, holding the mirror steady with her hand.

"So, this is supposed to trick your brain into thinking that the hand you’re seeing in the mirror is your amputated hand. Lift them at the same time, squeeze them and stretch them and do whatever, all at the same time, and watch it through the mirror, okay? Alright. Go ahead..."

I'm thinking this isn't going to work, that I just look like an idiot, that Denise is new to this and she's just as clueless as I am. But then I start doing it, and it kind of works. When I run my thumb along my fingers, I feel it. Scratch my palm with my fingers. Squeeze. Feel it. Swear I do. "Whoa..."

"Wait, it actually works?"

"What?"

"I mean, yes!" She stands. "Yes of course it does. Duh. Hm. Ah." I like the noises Denise makes when she gets excited. "How does it feel?" she asks.

"I can't tell," I mumble. "But, it's good. I think."

She grins, this look in her legs like she’s trying not to hop on the spot. She settles, turning and walking away. "Want some oatmeal?"

"Oh. Sure."

"Great! You keep on... uh... you know... thating."

“Yes, ma'am."

She goes to the kitchen area. I hear her mutter, "Ma'am. Could get used to that," under her breath while she prepares our lunch. "Hey," she says to me a moment later, whispering for Scott’s sake. "How's your chest?"

It's only then that I notice I can breathe. Like, really breathe. I inhale fast and deep. Denise grins. The microwave  _biiirs_  in the corner.

"Cool, huh?"

"Yeah," I answer. "You... You breathe like this all the time? Sonofabitch, this is great. How long will I stay like this?"

The microwave ding!s.

Denise opens it, says, "If you keep taking your inhalers, should stay like this..." She grabs a spoon but gets distracted by something outside which she sees through the window. Quickly, I’m handed a cup of oatmeal and a spoon. Denise heads to the door, but realises she's forgotten her own spoon and rushes to get one, then remembers the door again and rushes back to it.

I'm grinning madly at her, mixing my oatmeal. I decide that Denise is awkward and mesmerising.

Morgan is at the door.

"Hey," she says to him. "Sorry." She prods at her oatmeal. "I was making..." It occurs to her that she picked up a wooden spoon. She scoffs, then looks up at Morgan. "Want some oatmeal?"

"Thank you. I'm okay."

Denise watches him. "You were coming to the door, what's up?"

"I-I'm not here for... I'm fine."

"You can tell me if you're not." There's something about the way Denise speaks that makes it very easy to believe her.

"Morgan..." I hear Rick now, walking by. "Can we talk now?"

"M-hm."

"Denise?" Rick says. "He in there?"

"Yeah," she answers, stepping aside so he can see me. I put down my hand self-consciously. Morgan is walking away with Rick. Denise is watching after them. When she turns back to me, she asks, "Why'd you stop?"

"Leftie's tired," I say, rubbing the ache against my thigh.

She nods. "Get easier with practice.”

I take a spoonful of oatmeal.

"Hey, do you want to talk about it?” she asks, walking over. “You know, what happened with Aiden, or anything else, something before the turn even... if you wanted? We can talk about Nell. I know you two were friends, before. And I know I'm a doctor here, but after my panic attacks, I studied psychology, so I could be like your therapist."

I smile uncomfortably, thinking of my dad, how he was a shrink and how he always spoke to me like I was one of his patients. "I'm alright."

She sighs. "I know you're not."

I eat more oatmeal to get the lump in my throat to go away, and Denise takes the hint. She puts the mirror against the wall, reflective-side facing away, then comes over and sits next to me and we eat the rest of our oatmeal on the floor in silence together. I don't know if it’s her strategy, to stay quiet long enough, but it must work because it's me who speaks first.

"How did you stop your panic attacks?"

We're at the sink now; she's taking my mug from me and washing it. "Learned how to manage them."

"But... how did you do that?"

"Breathing exercises." Denise moves her head when she talks. Sometimes she'll tighten her pony tail or just rub her hand down it, like she's making sure it's still there or something. "They work most of the time. Know how to do breathing exercises?"

I shake my head. 

_Funny how a guy who spends so much time thinking about how to breathe doesn't really know much about breathing at all._

"It's kinda similar to settling asthma attacks. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Slowly. Relax your body."

"They get really bad sometimes," I confess. "I feel like I'm having a heart attack, like I'm dying and I don't know why."

She gives me this look, like she knows exactly what I mean. "Wanna practice them?"

"Err... okay."

"Won't take long."

* * *

 

_It’s a children's book for me, one of Judy’s, about a boy, a stallion, and a unicorn, or it’s another crossword puzzle._

"We’re done with the meeting now. You can come down.”

“Okay. Thanks, Carol.”

“Uh... can I talk to you?”

“Sure...”

"About last night.”

"About what part? The part where I tried to go after him? The part where you were all ready to just drop him? To just leave him out there? Like he's nothing? Like you don't even care?"

"You're not the only one who loves that boy, Carl."

"You... were gonna go after him, too?"

"Of course I was... I almost lost him once. I'm not about to do it again."

"But he... He doesn't know that. Carol, he thinks—”

"It's better this way. I only make things worse.”

"What?"

"I keep... trying — I want to show him that I... But... I have to stop."

"Stop? Stop what, being there for him? Caring about him?"

"I'm trying to explain—"

"No, this is bullshit!"

"You’ll wake your sister."

"This isn't fair. This is what he's afraid of. This is what he's been trying to protect himself from, but it's... it's not fair!"

"It's not going to be fair on him! It's not going to be fair on any of us! But this is how you protect the people you love.”

“Here, Judy... sorry...”

“I don't know why I said anything... I shouldn't have said anything... Just... don't tell him."

“We keep too many secrets, Carol. It’s done nothing but push us farther apart.”

_If I am the boy, then Oliver is the stallion, and Carol is the unicorn._

* * *

 

A bird flies overhead. I squint at it, Nell's notebook in my pocket. Someone says my name and I turn and see Noah walking after me. Bean greets him, but is ignored. Noah points at me.

"Do you know where Aaron is?"

I shake my head. I put my arm in my hoodie pocket.

"I wanna go in the dark room," Noah explains. "Nobody's been in there since... What about that... uh... big key chain, thing? I was just in their house lookin' for it. They usually keep it in the pot next to the fridge."

"You went through their stuff?" I accuse.

"And you haven't? I know what you keep in your pocket, Oliver."

"It's back at home," I blurt, pointing. "In my backpack."

Noah grits his teeth and heads there. I watch him go. Tara’s on the side-walk, arms crossed, watching. When Noah is gone, she greets me. "Hey." I go up on tip-toes when she bumps my shoulder. I look at her and know I'm meant to reply, or at least smile, but I don't. "Cool hoodie."

"Thanks," I say flatly.

"Sooo... what's up with you two?"

I sigh. "I'm just really good at pissing him off."

Tara frowns. “You should go after him.”

“I shouldn’t.”

“No, no...” She’s pushing my shoulders. “I think you should...”

“Knock it off!”

“Nope!”

I groan in dismay and cross the street. "Okay, okay, I'm going." I'm not even looking at her and I know she's grinning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope it wasn't boring. The asthma review was inspired by a conversation I had with my doc about my own asthma a few months ago... whoops. Also, I love Denise.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	88. Season 6 ~ Heads Up, Part 3: Ten Green Balloons

Noah doesn’t tell me not to accompany him to the dark room. Equipped with the right set of keys, we unlock the door and enter without a word, keeping the door open while we go about taking down the pictures that’ve been left to dry. Since Daryl and Aaron aren't recruiting anymore, all these photos are different. Personal. Most are of Enid sleeping, or doing other candid things. There’s a photo of Jessie tying her hair back. One of Ron yelling at Sam. Olivia noting supplies. Carl and I up on the gazebo roof. Denise getting caught reading War and Peace with a half-eaten smore in her mouth — I look at that one and for some reason my chest flutters, like the way it does when I watch Carl draw, or bite his tongue while concentrating on a crossword puzzle.

Finally, Noah talks. "How was practice?"

"Fine." I tuck my amp in my hoodie pocket, ask back: "How was machete practice?"

"Fine."

I frown.

Noah stops collecting and looks up at a batch of photos. People talking. Grimacing. Yawning. Laughing.

"She liked getting people when they were just being them," he says, slow, like he isn't really here. "Not trying, or... posing or performing. Not acting the way they're supposed to or the way they're expected to. Just... being."

There's one of Carl laid on the couch reading a comic with about three chins. One of Noah scribbling into his notebook. Another of Mikey looking up through a staircase banister, his eyes big and bored. I look away from that one, clear my throat.

Noah picks up one of the sky — nothing really special about it except that I can see Penelope's thumb in the left corner.

“This is the only photo with her in it,” he says, and laughs. He looks at me and his eyes are wet. "Sorry 'bout all the yelling earlier. I'm just... kinda..."

"Yeah, man."

"Yeah..." He sighs. "I’m not sure I even want them all. Just... wanted to be closer to her. This was the only thing I could think of. Still, it isn't enough."

I understand this, how looking at her photos is more like reading her fiction than her fact. I get this feeling like there’s still truth in it, though, like how stories always come from somewhere; you just have to look.

"While we were practicing with the machetes earlier," Noah changes subject. "I was using yours."

"Oh..."

"I didn't realise until I saw the red handle. Hope you don't mind."

I shrug and collect a few photos. "I don't use it anymore. I don’t care."

"Was weird," Noah remarks. "Last time I held it, I used it to... to..."

"Cut off my hand," I finish. "Yeah, must’ve pretty weird for you, huh?"

"Come on, man," Noah complains. "I didn't mean it like that..."

"It's fine," I say. "Whatever." The phantom pain starts up again. I tuck my amp into my pocket and Bean sniffs at me like I might feed him from it, and it occurs to me that I haven't fed him yet today at all.

_Looking after pets is hard._

“I'm sorry,” Noah says.

I shrug. "I'd be dead if you hadn't done it. I'd be worse than dead. I'd be one of them."

"No, I mean, I'm just... sorry it happened. Sorry I've been an asshole."

"I get it."

Noah nods. We finish collecting the photos.

"I know that she was, you know, asexual, or whatever, but... well... I figured, I’d ask... you... because you’re, you know... gay—”

“I’m not gay.”

“You’re not?”

“No.”

“Well, anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I still loved her, even though she wasn’t into me like that. Is that bad of me? We were so close. It felt... I mean... I would never expect her to... I... I just wanted her to know. And I was going to tell her, but... I guess, I didn’t think I needed to...” He sighs. “Do you think she would have hated me for that?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I... don’t think she would hate you for loving her. I don’t think she would have hated you for caring.”

This seems to make him feel better. He wipes his eyes and collects all the photos into piles. "I wish she’d taken just one of herself," he says.

"I think that's what she wanted though," I murmur. "She loved stories. I think, when it came down to it... to the end... all she wanted was to be a story, too."

Noah sniffs.

“Sorry,” I say. "I just mean, like you. You want to build. And Deanna wants to make a better future. Carl wants to protect this place and draw. Rick's keeping us and his kids safe. You know? Like, everybody's got something they're working for. Everyone's got a bigger picture. But Nell? She just had her stories. That's all she wanted to leave behind. No walls or shells or plans... no evidence... just stories."

"Sounds like her," Noah admits.

I nod carefully.

"What about you then?" he asks, smiling. "What are you working for? What's your bigger picture?"

"I... I don't know."

We lock up the dark room and start to walk back to the house.

"I loved her," Noah tells me again. "I loved her like crazy. I loved her like she wasn't even real." He tucks his the one photo of the sky and her thumb into his jeans pocket.

"I'm sorry I left my pillow outside our door," I tell him.

Noah turns to me again. He tries not to, but he laughs, the kind of laugh that's hiding a sob somewhere inside it. He grabs my shoulder and pulls. "Come on." As we walk, he asks me, “So, you aren’t gay?”

I shake my head.

“And you just know that?”

I shrug, thinking about Enid’s shrugs and Denise’s hands in the sink. My crushes are strange, but they’re crushes.

Suddenly there is yelling. Shots are fired. We get to the commotion in time to see Tara climbing back onto the watch post from outside, and Rick, Tobin and Michonne up on another guard post, glaring down at the heap of Spencer panting on the floor in front of them, ropes dangling all over the place.

"Tara!" Rick roars. "Y'almost died once for these people! What the hell are you playing at?!"

She puts her middle finger up at him.

Rick turns back to Spencer. "What was that?"

"I was trying to help? " Spencer answers. "I wanted to get to a car, draw them away!"

"You ever make a climb like that before?" Rick growls. "You wanna help, don't make us come runnin' to save you. You got an idea. You come to  _me!_ "

"Would you've listened to me?"

Soon after that I’m inside Carl’s house, looking for him, but I just find Carol babysitting Judith. It's awkward and uncomfortable, and I try to think of something to say, and fail.

"Would you like some soup?" she asks.

I shake my head, then turn and leave the house.

* * *

 

"Hey. Oliver."

“Oh. Carl. Hey. Didn’t see you.”

“You were rushing. You okay?”

“M-hm...”

"I... uh... saw that you hadn't put any water or kibble down, so I did it for you."

"Sorry. Thank you, for the kibble... Another crossword?”

“M-hm. Oh. Here. Beanie.”

“Thanks, man.”

“Granola bar?”

“I’m okay.”

“Okay.”

"I am sorry I yelled at you."

"I know. Give me your hand.”

“Carl...”

“I know. Hold still."

“Are you drawing your hat on me?”

“Yep. See, your scars are the dangles.”

“Oh, cool...”

"How'd it go at the clinic?"

"Good, actually."

"Really?"

"Really. We ate oatmeal, and did this cool mirror therapy. Denise is great. Like, really great.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, man. Kalon."

"Huh?"

“Your crossword. Five across. I think it’s kalon. Beauty that is more than skin deep."

"Is that with a C or a K?"

"K, man."

“Does Denise have kalon?”

“Shut up!”

“Okay.”

“You know, even back at the prison, you'd narrow your eyes so much I couldn't tell if you were angry at me or not."

“I was usually just angry at you."

"Why?"

"Because I was crushing on you."

"I'd hate to know what you'd do to somebody you actually hated."

"I screw their brains out."

“Wow, you must hate me so much!”

“Totally.”

“Totally. Hmm.”

“What?"

"I'm just... kind of an asshole."

"Glad you figured that out."

“I just... I gotta fix some stuff with Carol. Maybe I can get her to give me another hair cut.”

“No.”

“It’s too crazy.”

“I like it crazy.”

“What about you? How come you never cut your hair?"

"I don't know. My mom used to cut it."

_"Baby, the more you fidget the longer it takes, so don't, okay?"_   
_"I'm trying!"_   
_"Well, try harder."_   
_"You think this is bad? Wait 'til you start shavin'. Stings. Days'll come when you'll be wishing for one o' your momma's haircuts."_   
_"I'll believe that when I see it."_

"It's just weird; somebody else cutting it. Wanna go for a walk?"

“Sure, man.”

* * *

 

Outside, the air smells of rot, and it’s warm — the back of my head is hot under my hat as we come out of shade. Almost warm enough to want to take off my hoodie. Carl takes my hand. Then, as we come near to the east side, I tug him back suddenly. Carl frowns at me but I hardly notice. Instead I’m staring up at something outside the gates in the distance, floating up through the sky. Ten green balloons.

I stagger back and Carl yanks me straight.

"It's her!" I say, voice high and raspy. "It's her! It's Enid!"

"I don't know..."

"It's somebody," I whimper. "It could be them. It could be all of them." _Glenn,_ I think, _Daryl, Sasha, Abraham, Enid, Nicholas..._

Carl squeezes my hand hard and we watch the balloons float higher and higher across the sky, following the mid-day wind, and for this beautiful moment, all I feel is hope. It puts a lump in my throat and a swell in my heart and a buzz through my whole body, and it's good and warm and something I hold on to...

But it slips.

Something cracks and groans — wood breaking. We look. We watch. And there is nothing anybody can do as the guard tower tips into the community like a lost game of Jenga.

"Carl..."

In the same moment his name stumbles out of me, I have time to yank his hand back and run, only not like before, because this time we are not safe. We never really were. God. We hear it happen, but we don't look. We know. We know that the tower has fallen. We know it has crashed through the wall like a sledgehammer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that in the AU (edit: yeh, I wrote one, it was like 110,000 words long and I loved it but deleted it because I'm a shit) Oliver and Nell used to fool around together but that doesn't take away from her sexuality either. Also, Nell is very inspired by Margo from Paper Towns, I realise. I also think that's why Noah found her so fascinating, since he was reading it while he knew her. Like, she was that mysterious creature he hardly knew about but was hopelessly in love with.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	89. Season 6 ~ Start to Finish: Tiptoe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tiptoe from your safe-house  
> To the dead arms of a walker herd  
> And tiptoe through the dead streets with me

Carl and I hide behind a solar panel, pinning our backs to the cold. Ron’s here — I'm not sure where he came from. When the crashing stops, finally, a dust cloud spreads all the way past us; we must be hundreds of yards away.

"We gotta go," Carl says. "Ron, they're coming."

He's hunched on the ground, hands clamped over his ears.

"Ron!" Carl tries to yank him up. "Ron, we gotta go." Ron shoves him away, dropping his gun.  Carl hands it back. "Look," he urges. "I know you're scared. I... I know... okay? I am, too. But we gotta run now... Ron, please."

"Ron!” I grab him by the collar and shake. “Get the fuck up and run!”

He does. Walkers on our tails. We hear Rick nearer the wall, yelling for everyone to get back. Carl yanks me back by my elbow and walkers spill around the corner ahead of me. We go the other way. I see Maggie by the guard post, Noah with her. Tobin running. Morgan with Carol.

"Oliver, come on!"

Rick and Deanna are ahead. Deanna's bleeding. Rick is shouting. Michonne is here, too, beheading a walker too close, and then Gabriel is here, and all of us are bolting towards the first house for Judith, but walkers are surrounding both houses. There’s a gunshot. It's Jessie. She takes down two more bodies.

"Come on!" she screams. "I have Judith!"

Inside her house, the door slams locked behind us. Deanna collapses. The rest of us don't waste time in boarding every window and door with whatever we can. Music is playing from somewhere upstairs. Someone grabs my collar and I'm suddenly helping carry Deanna upstairs. She's moaning and bleeding and everybody is yelling.

_'Come, tiptoe through the window_   
_By the window, that is where I'll be_   
_Come tiptoe through the tulips with me_

_Tiptoe from your pillow_   
_To the shadow of a willow tree_   
_And tiptoe through the tulips with me...'_

Rick, Michonne and I burst into Ron’s bedroom.

"Sam, I need you to turn off the music and shut the blinds!"

"Because of the monsters?"

_'Knee-deep in flowers we'll stray  
We'll keep the showers away...'_

It's hard to focus. Somebody pushes me aside and I trip over Bean. I don't know how he got here. Sam grabs him. Rick pushes past me, grabbing me by the hoodie, asking if I'm alright but rushes away before I answer. Judith’s screaming.

“You stay up here and you stay quiet it's gonna be okay."

"Mom."

"Honey, just try... Just pretend? Okay, just pretend that you're somebody who's not scared? Just try. Okay?"

"Okay."

She kisses his forehead. "I love you." Then she's rushing back out again, helping with Deanna. Judith's still screaming in Carl's arms. He grabs my sleeve and pulls me down the hallway at Rick's urge for us to go get Judith’s cot. Ron’s standing at the top of the staircase, looking pale and sweaty. Carl pushes Judith into his arms.

“Hold her.”

Carl gets me to help bring Judy’s cot from Sam's room.

“There’s no way out.”

"What? Oliver."

"There's no way out," I repeat, breathless. "Th... There's no way out, man."

" _No._ You can't do this. Not now. So get that end and come on."

* * *

 

Twenty minutes later, we're waiting in the kitchen, Carl, Ron and I, watching the doors and windows. Judith is in her cot upstairs. Deanna was bitten. Rick told us a minute ago. Her fever's already set in. She’s talking to Michonne now.

Ron leaves for the garage. I sigh.

"I’ll go," I say.

"It's okay," he says, standing up. "Stay."

He leaves. I sit and try to clear my head. Listening to the walkers outside and the mumbling upstairs—"The Latin in the margins, what was that?" "It was something Reg used to say when things went really, really badly."

Then something smashes in the garage. I rush to the door. Locked. Rick’s here then. Calling out. Jessie, too. Panicking. Michonne and Gabriel too.

"Carl!" Rick screams.

"It's locked."

Carl’s yelling from inside. Walkers shriek.

"Ron!" Jessie screams. " _Ronopenthedoorrightnow!_ "

There’s just crashing and banging and growling and yelling. Rick hacks at the door with his axe, and soon, the door is open and the next thing I'm aware of is Carl crashing into me and the walkers are coming through the garage and we force the door shut. It shudders against them. Rick lugs a couch over. We need more and we need to be quiet. Michonne goes into the kitchen to find something. Gabriel heads for the living room.

The couch is slipping against the door.

"Help," Carl begs.

"I got it," Jessie rasps.

"Hey, what happened in there?" Rick asks.

"We were looking for tools, knocked over a shelf."

"We heard yelling," Jessie says.

"Yeah," Carl answers. "Ron saw them break through the gates. We had to move... That's what happened."

Ron steps over, says something about night-stands and he and Carl go look together.

"Hey, hey—"

"What?" Ron hisses at his mom.

"—it sounded like you were fighting."

"Yeah, we were fighting them."

"Carl," I whisper.

"It's okay?" Rick asks him.

"It's okay."

He and Ron disappear into the dining room and shut the door behind them. Michonne has come back with some boards so I leave them to it. I stand outside the dining room and listen.

"Carl, I'm sorry."

"Yeah, yeah — now gimmie the gun. Look, man, I get it. My dad killed your dad, but you need to know something. Your dad was an asshole."

The door opens. Carl walks right into me. His face drops. Ron tries to leave after him but I square up to him, nose to nose.

"Oliver," Carl whispers. “Don’t.”

Gritting my teeth, I step aside and watch Ron walk away. Something smashes outside. I flinch. Carl takes my hand and I ask him, “Are you okay?” only he asks me the same question at the same time.

“I’m fine,” I answer.

“Little jumpy,” he answers, except he’s talking about me I think. He hugs me. I squeeze tight. We pull away and go back into the hallway.

"They knocked the sculpture over," Jessie says.

"All that noise, it's drawing more," Michonne whispers.

Judith starts crying. Rick goes up to check her. The rest of us help Ron wedge a large night-stand against the garage door. The backdoor gives but Michonne and Gabriel are fast enough to shove a cabinet against it. Sam’s music is still playing.

_'Tiptoe from your pillow_   
_To the shadow of a willow tree_   
_And tiptoe through the tulips with me_

_Knee-deep in flowers we'll stray  
We'll keep the showers away...'_

"Oliver..." Jessie says, waving her hands. “Oliver, watch out!” And then something hard and heavy hits me. I collapse, clutching my skull. It was the cabinet. The others are rushing around me, grabbing me and shoving the cabinet back into place. I'm so dizzy I fall to my knees. I must pass out for a second, because then someone is lugging my up the stairs and walkers are pouring into the house after us. "Rick!" Jessie cries.

"Oliver, get up!"

I do. Rick pulls me with him upstairs. My head is throbbing. I need my inhalers. I look over the banister, sitting because my legs aren't listening to me.

"Block the stairs!"

They use the couch. It works. Carl rushes up to me, removing my beanie and yanking my head forward. “Ack!” "Your head.” "I'm fine." "You're...” “There's a lump.” “I... I can't see any blood.” “Move.” "You need to lie down." “No, seriously, man, move...”

I yack across the floor and Carl jumps back.

"I'm okay," I say, trying to get to my feet. "I... I'm okay."

“God dammit, do what I tell you for once! Sit down. Now.” I do, scowling. Carl tidies the floor as best he can with a rag from the bathroom.

“Sorry,” I say, shutting my eyes.

“Don’t be. You’d clean up my puke, right?”

I cough and try to keep my head still. “Totally, man.”

* * *

 

Soon, the whole first floor of Jessie’s house is filled with walkers. Gabriel is with Judith and Deanna in Ron’s room. Michonne and Rick are in Jessie’s room, dissecting two walkers. Ron is standing over the staircase, keeping watch, and Carl is sitting across from me in the hallway while Jessie tends to my head.

She cups my face in her hands. "Where does it hurt?"

"Everywhere above my shoulders," I say, “pretty much.”

She smiles and gently pulls my head down, separating my hair with her fingers. It aches. I glare at my beanie in my lap because if I don’t I look down her shirt instead and end up apologising for it.

“For what?”

“Nothing,” I answer. Carl laughs. I cringe.

Jessie hands me some pain pills from the bathroom. "Think you're concussed. Take it easy, okay?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Jessie goes and helps Michonne with the corpse.

"Oliver," Rick says. "You well enough to keep an eye on Deanna?"

I nod, getting up. "Rick?"

"Yeah."

"Bean. He's..."

"We'll cover him, too. All of him. Let him go before us. He'll either make it or he won’t."

"Yes, sir."

"Carl, you stay here. You see any squeezing through, you get me. Hey, we're gonna need bed sheets, enough for everyone."

Carl psst!s at Ron, who jumps and gets to finding the bedsheets. I go. Deanna’s sleeping on the bed. The blinds bump the window when I sit on the window-ledge.

Outside, Rick is talking to the others.

"We all go to the armoury."

"How?"

"We're gonna gut these things, cover ourselves with the insides. It'll mask our smell, make them think we're like them. I've done it before... We stay calm, we don't draw attention, we can move right through them."

"They're in the house. They're making noise. More are coming."

By the sounds of it, they get started.

"Anyone who stays here is gonna die," Rick says.

"What about Deanna?" Gabriel asks.

_'Knee-deep in flowers we'll stray  
We'll keep the showers away...'_

Michonne walks into the room. Deanna startles. She looks at Michonne and smiles Van Goughly. "What's happening out there?"

"They're getting in," Michonne explains. "The rest of us are gonna have to go. If you want me to, I'll—"

"No... Not ready. Not yet. I will be. Soon. And when I am." She raises her revolver. "I'll do it myself. It's my life. Start to finish.  _Dolor hic tibi proderit olim._ "

"What does it mean?" Michonne asks.

Deanna touches Michonne's cheek. "Someday this pain will be useful to you."

I leave and close the door behind me. I don’t feel good, like I’m panicking again. _Focus,_ I think. _Just pretend that you're somebody who's not scared._

"Oliver?"

I startle. Carl isn't supposed to leave his post so he watches me across the hall instead. I pull myself together. Michonne leaves Ron's room behind me. She hugs me. I don’t know why. I think she needs it.

“C’mon, boys.”

We follow her into Jessie’s room. Everyone’s already coating themselves in walker guts. Carl, Michonne and I are handed bed sheets. We cut holes for our heads, then get to coating ourselves too. I’m almost used to the smell by now; it’s the consistency that messes me up.

"Try to think about something else," Michonne tells me.

"Okay.”

Carl un-sticks his fingers and says, "Yeah, and don’t think about throwing up again."

"Come on, man," I complain.

“Think of something else,” Michonne repeats.

"Strawberry sundaes,” I groan, “and... and pudding... oh no."

Carl is fast. He grabs Judith and pulls me to face the bed and I empty the remaining contents of my stomach across the pillow and bedside table. He's rubbing my spine, just like Carol did that day; using the opportunity to wipe more guts over me. I shove his hand away and yack again.

"You asshole — _huurk!_ I hate you." I spit and I turn to the others, wiping my mouth. "Sorry... err, your bed."

Jessie looks ready to cry. "It's okay."

Then Bean is here. He sniffs at my hands and steps away in disgust, but I am quick enough to grab him. Carl helps me coat him, too.

"Mom?"

Sam is standing in the doorway. Jessie rushes over to him. "You need to listen to me, okay? We aren't safe here anymore. Okay, we need to do this so that we can be safe out there. We need to look like the monsters."

"No, please, no."

"Yes, honey, we have to go, okay? We have to, Sam." He's crying. "Honey, just... just pretend you're brave. Okay? Just make it all pretend. Okay, none of this is real and you're somebody who isn't afraid. Okay?"

"Okay."

* * *

 

Bean made it out of the house, which was promising. The sun is setting. Carl and I are in the bathroom. He’s redoing my bandage; it's come loose again. The door is open and occasionally somebody will rush past for something, and the growling doesn’t wade.

"I love you,” I whisper.

Carl frowns, concentrating. Outside there's still day-light but at this time in the evening the whole world looks grey and brown. Even his eyes look dull.

"Put your finger here...” he says. “Okay, done. Come on, they're waiting for—" I grab his hand before he walks away. Carl sighs. "I'm not saying it back, Oliver."

"Why?"

He touches our foreheads and his hand comes up under the rag against my chest, pressing flat against my sternum. "Because... it's just another way of saying goodbye."

I look at him. “What if—”

“No.”

“—what if it is?” I insist. “I didn't get to say goodbye to my family. Maybe... Maybe it's alright to... to say goodbye."

"No!" His eyes get wet. "It never _changes_ anything. It still hurts. You can know it's about to happen and you can be right there with them... and you can listen to them say it to you. You can even say it back... but it doesn't change anything. It still hurts."

I dip my head and shut my eyes.

"I lied to Enid yesterday," Carl confesses, leaving a smudge of gut as he wipes hid cheek. He sniffs. "I told her that you couldn't cope with another goodbye... but it's _me_... _I_ can't, Oliver. Not again."

I kiss him.

He pulls away.

"We're getting out of this —take my hand." He grabs it. "And don't let go."

_'Knee-deep in flowers we'll stray  
We'll keep the showers away.'_

We head out into the landing, meeting the others.

"We have to go," Rick tells us.

"We're ready," Jessie says. "Ron?"

"Yeah."

"I'll get Judith," Rick says.

"Rick," Gabriel says. "I'm not gonna give up out there. I will not turn back, no matter what happens."

"Yeah, I know."

Rick returns with Judith and hides her under Carl’s sheet. Carl buttons up his shirt around her and tucks it into his belt to hold her up. Without a word, we descend the staircase, heads down, mouths shut. Rick goes first, then Judith and Carl, me, Jessie, Sam, Ron, Gabriel and Michonne. Jessie's hand is shaking around my amputation. Walkers hiss in our ears. Then we're on the porch. A walker cuts right between me and Carl and we let go of each other. This walker’s particularly nasty; chattering its teeth violently. My shoulders come up and I wait for it to go away. It does. When I’m safe enough to look at Carl, he’s staring at me and his eyes are wet. I look out over the community. Walkers fill the streets.

Finally, Rick's hand links with mine. He was aiming for Carl but settles, nods. Carl holds onto my sleeve. Jessie takes Carl's other hand and so forth after her, and we walk.

_Come, tiptoe through the front door_   
_With the walkers, that is where we'll be_   
_Come tiptoe through the dead streets with me_

_Tiptoe from your safe-house_   
_To the dead arms of a walker herd_   
_And tiptoe through the dead streets with me_

_Knee-deep in their blood we'll stray_   
_We'll keep the walkers away_

_And if I kill them, holding your hand_   
_While they chase us_   
_Will I keep you safe?_   
_Come tiptoe through the dead streets with me..._

“Mom?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	90. Season 6 ~ No Way Out: Lost Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eye don't know yet...

We walk slowly enough that it’s getting dark. We stop near the lake to regroup, needing a new plan. Too many walkers. Not enough to take them out. We need our vehicles back at the quarry. Rick makes a plan to leave and come back with them.

"But Judith. To the quarry and back, I..."

Rick pinches his nose.

"I'll take her," Gabriel whispers. “I'll keep her safe in my church until you all get the walkers away."

Rick nods. He looks like he might cry. "Can you do this?"

"I'm supposed to," Gabriel whispers. "I have to. I will."

"Alright.”

Carl hands his sister over and Gabriel puts his sheet over her and tucks her close against his chest.

"Take Sam," Jessie whispers.

"No.”

"Yes, Sam. It'll be safe."

"I'm not leaving you."

"Sam."

"Mom, I'm not. I can keep going. I can keep going." Sweat makes his fringe stick in clumps against his forehead. "Please. Please, let's just go."

"Okay..."

Gabriel carries Judith through the herd. I link hands with Carl.

"He's gonna make it, okay?" Jessie says. "I know it."

"Sam..." Rick whispers. He takes his hand. The rest of us link up too.

"Come on.”

* * *

 

In minutes, the dark turns my muscles to pulp and my mouth to sand paper. We’re almost to the gates, squinting through the gloom and the dead, when we’re forced to stop.

"Sam..."

He’s staring across the street, at a young walker.

_Oh no..._

"Sam," Jessie whispers again. "Come on. Sweetheart."

"Sam.”

“Sam..."

He steps back. Jessie keeps hold of him.

"Let's go."

"Can't."

"Yes, you can. Sam, come on."

"Come on, Sam."

"Hey, you can do this. Hey, just look at Mom."

"Honey, you can do it."

Sam whimpers, and then rotten fingers wind around his chest and we watch him die. Screaming. Jessie keeps hold of his hand. Carl struggles to pull free of her, begging her to be quiet, to come with us, to let go of his hand. And the walkers get her, too.

"Dad!"

I’m pulling him back. Pulling so hard Carl’s getting torn. I think he’s going to die, too. Know it. I'm watching Rick raise his axe, and with three blows through Jessie’s forearm we fall back against the road. Carl shakes her hand off. Growls drown us. I stand, catch my breath, look around for the others, clinging Carl’s shoulders. Michonne's pacing, taking out the walkers who notice us. Rick, too. Carl looks past me, watching his father, blood-splattered and petrified and I look around at what he’s watching and see Ron standing a few feet away, glaring down a gun and mumbling.

I flinch at the gunshot. Then he’s dead, too, with Michonne’s katana sunken through his chest. I twist around, and see right beside me, Carl standing there without half of his face.

" Dad? "

Bone and flesh jut outward in jagged angles. His eye rolls back, blood streams down, and then he slumps to the ground. Moments get weird then. Rick’s carrying him. Moving. I’m not inside myself but I can tell that my body is running and fighting the other walkers off. Michonne, too. Auto-pilot. Then the clinic door is open and Denise waves us inside. I miss the step, stagger and spin and fall back into myself. Get up. Help shut the door behind us.

"Is it a gunshot?"

"Handgun. Close range."

Rick lays Carl along the operating table. I touch it. It’s cold. I feel sick, like I can’t breathe. I turn and grip the bookshelf. Denise is yelling, fiddling with things. The main lights switch on. Walkers bash on the windows and doors. I clamp my eyes, wishing everybody would just be quiet a moment.

"We’re drawing them here," Spencer says.

"I need quiet!” Denise yells. “Michonne. Towel. You need to keep pressure on the wound. Just like that, right there."

"Please... please... no," Rick whispers.

I clamp my arms over my ears, hearing muffles about IVs and maybe my name and then the walker-gut rag is being pulled off over my shoulders. Aaron is looking at me, telling me things, pulling my hand down. More sound rushes me like a flood.

Then Rick marches outside.

"What are you doing?"

Blood pours off the table.

"Rick! _Rick!_ "

I go after him, knife in hand, but Heath yanks me back. I shake him off. He grabs me again. "Kid, don't!" I hit him across the sternum with my elbow and he stumbles.

"Oliver! Stop!"

"Oliver, I need your help here!" Denise says. She has something small and sharp in her hand. I don't know what she's doing with it. "Help Spencer with the IV set up. Aaron, Heath, keep watch."

We do as we’re told.

"Rick's out there!" Michonne rasps, pressing Carl's face.

"Hold on," Denise says.

"He needs my help!"

"Just one more suture.”

"He's out there!"

"This is his son. Give me a second."

Soon Heath is telling us, "We have to go get him."

"What?!" Spencer hisses.

"We have to," Heath insists, glancing at me. "This is it."

"Okay! I think we've got it," Denise says, stepping away from Carl to get another tool. Michonne kisses the boy's forehead and grabs her katana, and then the door is open and the five of us are rushing outside.

It’s hard to find him. There are so many walkers.

"There!" Aaron shouts.

I see him too: axe in hand, bull-dozing through the herd. Michonne saves his life when one gets too close, and I save hers when one gets too close to her. We collect in a circle. Backs facing.

"Stay on your toes!"  
"Keep in formation!"  
"Knock them away!"  
"Drive them down!"  
"Take them out!"

More walkers die and more people join us. Olivia. Eric. Barbara. Bruce. Kent. Eugene. Noah. Rosita. Tara. Morgan. Carol. Gabriel. Tobin. Until it's almost the whole community. Shots are being fired on the east side. Or maybe the north. I can't tell. We keep going. Dripping in blood. More shots go off in the distance. A machine gun. Then the sky glows and the whole lake is on fire. Walkers follow it. They burn or drown. I see Daryl, Sasha, Abraham and Glenn, parking a Pattrick Propane truck by the water. Daryl’s standing on top with a bazooka. I keep fighting with everybody. We keep going. We don't stop until it's over.

* * *

 

The sun is hot. The day had started a long time ago and our clothes are crusty and stale. Some of us are dead and the rest of us feel close to it, but we won. Corpses litter the street. The fire went out a while ago. I ache all over. Ill and backwards but it helps when Carol takes my shoulders in her arms and holds me. We go back to the clinic. For a while I sit by Carl's side. A clean bandage is wrapped around his head, covering his right eye socket. His skin is so pale.

He’d dropped his hat, before — I found it in the street and leave it by his bed. My hands are bloody and shaking. I rub off blood and ink.

"Oliver," Rick murmurs across the bed, holding his son's hand. "Go clean up. Upstairs. Your chest doesn't sound too good either. Denise'll get you some inhalers. G'on, son."

I go.

"Do you think he'll make it?" Noah asks me upstairs, grabbing a towel out of the closet for me. "Bean, I mean.”

I have no idea.

Noah stretches his lips and raises his chin. "He'll be okay," he says — that damned optimism. "He's survived worse. Hey, did she ever tell you how he lost it? His eye?"

I just shrug.

"Nobody knows,” Noah says. “Nell and her sis hadn't seen him in weeks. But, one mornin', he jus' showed up with his eye hanging out."

I wince.

"Sorry," Noah says, meaning it. "Hey... Thank you, for everything you did while we were out. I never thanked you for it. The Wolves — they killed my family. Now they're all dead and it's because of you and everyone who fought them. So, yeah, thanks... I owe you one... Well, no, I owe you a lot, but, that's one more. But who's keepin' count?"

He steps aside and I head into the bathroom. While showering, I stand there and re-live last night in my head again. The walker child. Sam’s worst fear right there across the street. _I_ put that in his head. I sit down and curl up against the wall. The tears don't come. I'm numb. On auto-pilot, like it still hasn't worn off from last night — maybe even since I lost Patrick in that candy store. I get this feeling like I’ve never really been here, in my own head and body, in months. I think of yesterday, how I hurt myself and felt better somehow, and this is how I start to pinch myself. It's awful. But like before, it works. It makes the pain in my head dull and I am calm and steady and here again.

There’s a knock at the door and I jump.

"You've been a while, are you okay? "

“Enid? Err... Yeah! Out in a sec.” I stagger out of the shower and dry off quickly. My arms and stomach ache. I see my skin already turning purple and red. It looks bad. People will notice, so I button up my flannel and roll the sleeve down, making sure my bandage is spread out up my whole forearm. I have to give up de-tangling my hair, instead simply pulling it all back and under my beanie.

Outside, water drips down my forehead, dampening my hoodie while I pull it on. I watch her grab a pale blue towel from the closet before heading downstairs. She doesn't see me, and in all honesty, I'm not entirely sure that I've even seen her either as I go downstairs, half expecting to see living smoke or floating pirate ships, or I'll look outside and in the trees will be a nest of pixies— _'and the mauve ones are boys and the white ones are girls, and the blue ones are just little sillies who are not sure what they are.'_  

She isn't in the main clinic room, or the kitchen. It's quiet. I can see tired figures sitting outside on the porch through the windows. Maggie is resting her leg injury. Glenn is comforting her. Michonne is holding Judith in the doorway to Carl's room. Abraham walks past me, pats my shoulder, grunts. I step over to Daryl. He's getting treated by Denise for the stab wound on his shoulder-blade, using the pale blue towel to wipe his hands.

"Outside," Daryl answers my unasked question.

I go. Carol’s there, too, and Rosita, Aaron and Eric. Others... Enid is kneeling on the porch seat, her knee-cut jeans ripped and knees scabby, and her red flannel and borrowed hoodie slumped at odd angles on her shoulders. Her hair is tangled and greasy. Her nose is sore-looking, eyes too. She looks small and muddy and miserable.

She knows.

I hold her and the tears come, from me or her first, I don’t know.

"Hi..."

* * *

 

In the late morning, Enid is still sitting with me. We have a blanket now, and some coffee and oatmeal to share. I've never seen Enid actually eat before, as odd as that is. Soon I learn that she eats with her free hand up, wrist popped back, and her fingers coiled. I want to ask questions but there are too many.

Neither of us say a word.

It's another day, which means another two pages. I grab Nell’s notebook and read an entry that stretches all the way across both pages. 

 _'Lost boy'_  is its title, and it’s about me and my shyness, how I use it like the shell. She calls me ‘a colourful M&M in a world full of staleness.’ She writes that I taught myself to be stale too, and that after I lost my family, my staleness kept me alive. She writes about how I cut my palm all that time ago before the world ended, how my wound stretched all the way up to my thumb, and how the mark will never go away, but how I’m still growing around it. She writes that my scar, my shyness, gets smaller every day compared to the rest of me, even if the staleness is still there sometimes to protect me.

“She was always one for a good metaphor,” Enid says suddenly.

I smile but I think I’m crying.

"Lost boy,” she adds. “She usually calls you Pan — don't know if you know that, but, you probably do."

I wipe my face and shrug, sniffing.

"I'm a lost boy, too," Enid says, almost sweetly. "Even if I'm a girl."

I close the notebook and tuck it into my jeans. Enid takes a steep breath and brushes a lock of hair behind her ear. I stretch, hear my back crack all the way up. Then I take Enid's hand. She asks what I'm doing. I draw the letters JSS onto her palm.

She stares at it, sniffs. "Okay."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you AwkwardlyMeOli for the pixie quote.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	91. Season 6 ~ The Next World, Part 1: Amnesia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keep an open mind for this one...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to train-wreck101 on Tumblr for your amazing fanart!

_Seven months later..._

* * *

_I looked out this morning and the sun was gone_   
_Turned on some music to start my day_   
_I lost myself in a familiar song_   
_I closed my eyes and I slipped away_

_It's more than a feeling_   
_When I hear that old song they used to play_   
_And I begin dreaming_   
_'Til I see Marianne walk away_   
_I see my Marianne walkin' away..._

Standing before the gazebo on a mild winter morning, I peer up at Enid, who is stretched across the roof reaching down to me. “Take my hand,” she says, and I do, and she counts to three and pulls. My feet scuff against the pillars and bench back-rest. Grunting. Slipping. “Hold on!”

I hit the ground with a dirt cloud, like I'm some tiny atomic bomb. Bean —who returned to Alexandria a few weeks after the herd, skin and bone and wagging his gutty tail— fusses over me. Then Enid does. I grunt and shrug them both off, muttering in Italian, which Enid hates because she thinks I'm talking about her.

“We'll try another way," she says.

“No. This is useless. I barely make it climbing over the wall.”

“Let the whole world know!” She sighs and her face switches to something miserable. "He's gonna make us go out there again, huh?"

I shrug.

"Can’t you talk to him?" she asks.

"Can't you?"

She rolls her eyes. "Just because you aren’t together anymore doesn’t mean he won’t listen to you. He _always_ listens to you. You’re his best friend."

"So are you,” I say.

“Yeah, but not like that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She gives me a look like I should know.

I brush it off. “Whatever. The difference is, I _like_ going out there. _You_ don’t. This is _your_ problem.”

She sighs and resigns herself. “Fine.”

She’s still looking at me.

“What?” I ask.

She sighs. “Nothing...”

The herd came seven months ago. Carl survived the gunshot. The bullet went in his eye and out his temple and messed up the small part in his brain that remembers things, and the day he woke up, the only person he knew was his father. But it was temporary. _Temporary._ I held a lot of hope in that word. And I guess it paid off because he remembered almost everything else within a few months or so, more or less, but... things were different. It’s difficult to explain — I just think that before he got shot, a lot of things were going wrong between us, most of it my fault, and, I guess, afterwards, while he was putting the pieces back together, he left some out, and... I just sort of let him do that. And sure, his memory came back but there were other things he had going on, like how it’s hard for him to concentrate on things a lot of the time, and sometimes when he’s rushing or something, his speech slurs, and other times he doesn’t notice he’s hurt himself and he’ll walk about with a bleeding arm until someone points it out. His depth perception is messed up too, now that he’s only got the one eye. Still, none of that was why we never got back together. Like I said, it’s hard to explain. I just... I haven’t been doing well. I hurt myself a lot. And I throw up too much and don’t eat enough. And I go too long without talking. It’s not because of Carl, either. He’s around. Always is. It’s my brain. It doesn’t work the way it used to, just like his doesn’t. And I guess I just realised it was better that we focussed on mending ourselves before we decided to get caught up mending each other. In the meantime, we hang out like normal kids with normal friends, reading comics and listening to CDs. I do PT, and sometimes I go to therapy sessions with Denise. Enid, Carl and I go outside the wall together, into the forest. We’ll spend whole days there sometimes, by our hollow tree. We even renovated the area a little. We brought a locker out to keep our stuff in and carved our initials into tree trunks. The forest became our safe-place. Or, mine at least. I think Carl goes because he thinks it helps him. And I think Enid goes because it’s somewhere she can write in her notebook, like her own little brain nest, where she sits and doesn’t come out of for hours.

Once, when I asked why she doesn’t run away anymore, she told me, “I’m just done... always running from my problems. You still lose people, even after they're gone. I didn't know what that meant before, but Glenn told me. He said, _'The people you love. They made you who you are. They're still a part of you. And, if you stop being you that last bit of them that's still around inside of who you are... it'll be gone.'_."

Faith without works is dead.

I don’t know if I believe in God. I think I do. I know Carl does, even if he doesn’t say so. And I think Enid wants to; she’s Jewish after all. My dad was Jewish. Mom was Catholic. They sort of let Pat and I decide ourselves.

Since we’ve given up trying to sit on the gazebo roof, we take refuge on the bench instead and wait for Carl to arrive — Enid in her notebook, Bean curled up at her feet, and me tugging at my new beanie occasionally. Michonne gave it to me for my sixteenth birthday a few months ago. It was a good day. Rick, out of the blue, decided to teach me to shave; it stung like a bitch. Afterwards, I went downstairs and walked right into a surprise party, leaping out of my skin as everybody suddenly rose out from behind the furniture with a cake and gifts, yelling, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, OLIVER!" Tara gave me a skateboard. Daryl gave me a Big Cat candy bar; sort of tossed it across the room with a grunty nod and then left to go hunting. Noah built me a bookshelf. Denise gave me a tennis ball; she says it's good for PT but Carl uses it more than me. Carl gave me a new holster; custom for lefties, with a small pouch to keep my inhalers and Lizzie's watch inside. Carol, who’d already baked the cake, waited until later in the evening to give me her gift. She gave me a Cherokee Rose in a cola bottle; said Daryl found it for her to give to me. She told me a story about when the American soldiers were moving Natives off their land, how the children were dying, starving, disappearing, how after, the Elders sent a prayer asking for a sign to lift the mothers’ spirits, to give them strength and hope, and then the next day the rose started growing right where their tears fell.

I can hear Enid’s stomach growl. Alexandria’s food supply hasn’t been looking great lately. Our crops were growing through summer but about a month ago some kind of locust came through, ate everything; they were loud and got into our hair and clothes — once I even found a dead one in an empty rifle bolt, and we didn't have anything to repel them, so all the crops were dead in days. Rick and Daryl have gone out again today to find more food, but if they keep coming back anything as empty as usual, it's going to take us everything to pull through the rest of winter. “Sorghum,” Eugene always insists. “Sorghum is _the_ envy of all corns.”

Still, things are moving forward here. The wall expansions are going well, we have a real church, a water-tower, a few more houses, and the lake water is clean now ever since the rain came through and flushed everything out.

Again, Enid pipes up complaining: "I don't wanna go out there anymore. There's nothing in the forest but ghosts. He doesn't even ask me if I want to anymore."

"Then tell him," I say. "I'm sick of you always whining about it."

"Asshole."

I don’t speak to her. Just mess with Mika's bracelet — it snapped recently, so I mended it with string. Lizzie's knife, too, has seen better days; the handle’s become more duck-tape than thermoplastic. And I’ve had to start leaving Nell’s notebook in my drawer as not to let the spine fall apart.

“I didn’t mean that,” Enid says.

“You did.”

I watch the lake. Reeds and lilies blur green and silver in the current. Enid sighs. I frown at her for it. It’s just odd, her being so sweet. Usually she'll let her bitterness take over, and I'll let that happen. I'll take comfort in it because her treating me like I’m normal is a good thing. A lot of people around here treat me like I’m something small that might break lately. But Enid? I'm not used to her treating me all sensitive. I’m used to her calling me an asshole and going back to reading.

“I was kidding,” I say, “sheesh. Keep writing..."

She does, hiding back in her brain nest. I listen to that happen. Pen on paper. It's a while later that I hear someone coming towards us. I get this feeling like I want to put my arm in my hoodie pocket, but Denise tells me I should try not to hide it too much anymore, so I resist. I’ve healed but I still have it wrapped, like Carl still keeps his socket wrapped.

Maggie smiles and pushes through the gap in the bush. She’s holding a scroll of paper and a clipboard. Her hair’s down over her shoulders and her denim flannel is buttoned up half way. No new-born infant curled up in her arms. She lost the baby early on, never told anybody but we figured, and the sadness of it didn’t last long because she’s pregnant again.

"Morning, you two."

I wave politely. Enid just closes her notebook.

"Where have you been, Enid?"

"What?"

"I never see you." Maggie smiles. "Everybody's been working for months to keep this place up and running and you just disappear sometimes..." Maggie lives right next door to me — sees me a lot, and more or less knows what I get up to; excluding things outside of Alexandria. "Do you sit in your room all day?"

"No," Enid answers.

Maggie's eyes move to me. I must look guilty because she sighs. "Then where do you go?"

"Nowhere..."

This is a clever truth. _Nowhere_ is what we've named the place in the forest with the hollow tree trunk and the locker.

Maggie sighs. "Enid... I'm—"

"You're around," Enid says, "I know."

Maggie nods and leaves. Enid stares after her. Sometimes I can tell she really _does_ want to talk to someone other than me and Carl. I just think it’s hard for her.

I flick her kneecap to get her attention. Enid must have shaved her legs recently because they’re smooth — I didn’t think she shaved, and I saw her naked once on accident, so I would know.

"She's just trying to repay me for helping her," Enid complains. “And I think she sees it as some kind of fate that I found Glenn out there.” When the herd split up the runners, Nicholas committed suicide and Glenn spent a night hiding under a garbage disposal, and Enid found him and they came back.

I think it’s one of the worst thoughts I’ve ever had that I’m glad Nicholas killed himself. It meant he didn’t have to come back and find out about his son, what I did.

“Why don’t they just drop it?” she asks. “Both of them. It wasn’t all they think it was.”

I think, a lot of the time, Enid has strange, special connections with certain people, but the moment you try to make sense of them, you just... can’t.

"She keeps telling me that maybe there are better places for me to go than just _Nowhere,_ " she adds, bitter mode out in full force. "Like she knows anything."

I'm still frowning at her.

"What?"

"Nothing," I tell her.

She sighs, playing with her necklace; a small part of deer antler dangling from it. “Can you cut my hair?” I look at her. She adds, “It’s too long.” It is; so long she sits on it sometimes. So long all of Alexandria and Virginia and America and Earth has to mind out not getting tangled up in it. “So, can you?"

"Why me?"

“Why not?"

"I have one hand."

"You're okay at shaving."

“No...” I stretch my neck up to show the small array of scabs on the side of my jaw. "I'm not. Why not Carol?"

"Because," Enid says, like she might be embarrassed. "Just... you, okay?"

I give her a flattered grin and she scowls and kicks me and I rant nonsense in Italian until she begs me to stop.

"You should talk to her," I say finally, "Maggie, I mean. She can help better than I can. You don't like it out there. Maybe spending time with her is a better place to go than just _Nowhere_."

Enid doesn’t seem to like this advice.

"He'll be here soon," she says.

And he is.

* * *

 

_So many people have come and gone_   
_Their faces fade as the years go by_   
_Yet I still recall as I wander on_   
_As clear as the sun in the summer sky_

_It's more than a feeling, more than a feeling_   
_When I hear that old song they used to play_   
_More than a feeling_   
_I begin dreaming. More than a feeling_

_'Till I see Marianne walk away  
I see my Marianne walk away..._

Enid and Carl wait patiently at the bottom of the wall until I manage to climb it, talking amongst themselves.

"Did your dad take a Ronnie Dee CD with him today?”

“Yeah. In the car.”

“Hm. I could hear it all the way from the pantry. Bet Daryl's loving that.”

"Draws away walkers."

“Is that what you were humming?”

“I was humming?”

“M-hm.”

“Oh. No. Something Oliver gave me. Been listening all morning."

“ _More_ mix-tapes.”

“No. CD’s.”

“I know,” she says, “I was kidding.”

I land across from them and brush myself off, handing Enid her brown towel from my shoulder that I’d collected at the top of the wall. She puts it in my backpack. Carl still looks a little put-off, like he knows he’s missed the joke. Sparing him, I nudge his elbow and motion for us to get going. Enid looks a little guilty, but it’s easy to move on from as we follow the deer-path through the forest, taking in the smell of the woods and the coolness of the day and the sound of the breeze through the leaves.

"Look..." Enid says at some point, diverting course.

I follow her, picking up a deflated, blue star-balloon and carefully pulling away the folded paper beside it. It's a letter.

"What's it say?" Carl asks.

Enid unfolds it.

"It got wet," she says. "It's all gone."

I read it over her shoulder but give up and rub my eyes when I get a headache.

Carl walks away. "C'mon."

"Doesn't look that old," she follows him, still holding the letter. "I mean, we can't read what they wrote but, just by doing this they're saying something."

"What?" Carl asks.

"We're not alone," she answers.

"We knew that. We saw it. People died."

As he walks away, she and I glance at each other. Another thing since he was shot, his bluntness has intensified to a fault. Sometimes it’s kind of nice, but other times it’s just ominous.

Enid turns to him because he is watching us now.

"Why are we coming out here?" she asks him.

"'Cause we're kids," he says, glancing at me. "That's what they do."

We keep walking.

Enid sighs. "We're not kids.”

_When I'm tired and thinking cold_   
_I hide in my music, forget the day_   
_And dream of a girl I used to know_   
_I closed my eyes and she slipped away_   
_She slipped away_

_It's more than a feeling_   
_When I hear that old song they used to play_   
_And I begin dreaming_   
_'Til I see Marianne walk away..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was More Than a Feelin' by Boston.
> 
> Should be around fall 2012 now. Non-cannon things are Maggie's miscarriage and getting pregnant again, and the seven-month time gap. Oliver's 16. Carl's 15. This is still a Carl x OMC story. It may be a slow burn. I just have a lot of clouds in my brain and for some reason this seems like a good idea. Also, bite me, De Luca, you can fucking age-UP for once.
> 
> Again, thanks, Fede, for the art  
> – find him on Tumblr, train-wreck101
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	92. Season 6 ~ The Next World, Part 2: Kids

_I've fallen out of favour_   
_And I've fallen from grace_   
_Fallen out of trees_   
_And I've fallen on my face_   
_Fallen out of taxis_   
_Out of windows too_   
_Fell in your opinion_   
_When I fell in love with you_

_Sometimes I wish for falling_   
_Wish for the release_   
_Wish for falling through the air_   
_To give me some relief_   
_Because falling's not the problem_   
_When I'm falling I'm at peace_   
_It's only when I hit the ground_   
_It causes all the grief..._

At Nowhere, we settle down along the trunk and share a dried fruit. Enid’s still trying to decipher the letter. Carl’s reading Invincible. I would read by my headache hasn’t gone away, so I get to playing catch with myself instead, using my PT ball. Carl brought it — I could hear him throwing it against the wall next door all morning.

I’m handed some dried fruit.

Enid looks up suddenly, then Carl. I hear something, too. Rustling.

"Come on," she whispers.

We leave our things and head for the hollow tree — if one of us crouches, all three of us fit. Except there’s only one problem: Carl doesn't come with us.

“Dude...” I whisper.

He crouches and watches the forest. "It's just Michonne and Spencer."

Enid steps out of the tree. "What were they doing?"

"I don't know." He sits back and takes his comic. Enid stands there, kicking the ground. She glances at me and takes a deep breath, then turns back to Carl.

"I don't wanna come out here anymore."

Carl looks at her and stands up and says, "Okay," as he puts away our comics and takes his hat, and as he walks away, I pick up my backpack and take Enid’s hand because she looks like she needs it. She makes a relieved sort of huff, and we get going.

The earth is hard and cold and the trees have lost all their leaves, bar a few that keep theirs through winter, or whose leaves are now brown and brittle. I look up through them, at the sun coming in and out of the cigarette-smoke clouds. It looks like it will rain.

Soon, not far from the wall, we spot a walker with mouldy, shoulder-length hair, dawdling the other way. If we leave it alone, it won’t notice us, but Carl still decides to draw his gun and go after it.

"Carl..." Enid whispers.

"Michonne's out here," he says. "I'm not leaving it."

He whistles and the walker turns to us. I see the blue watch, the torn, bloody blouse, the bandage tied around her leg, and the Van Goughly painted face. Cracked and moulding now.

“Deanna. No..." Enid whispers.

"Hey," Carl coos. "C'mon."

"Carl... Th...that's—"

"I know." His voice is soft; can hardly hear him. He draws his gun, but doesn’t use it. "Come here — this way..."

"What are you doing?" Enid hisses.

"Just go."

She takes out her knife. "We should kill it."

"Go home," Carl orders.

"No!"

" _Enid!_ ”

"This is bullshit. _It_ should be dead." She steps around him and he grabs her. "Let go!" He doesn't, instead he's dragging her backwards and she stumbles and then I'm there, shoving him away.

"Stop, man!"

"Go!" he yells, pushing me so hard I stagger. "Go!"

" _Dude!_ "

"Just _leave!_ "

"The hell are you doing, man? C'mon, stop... _stop!_ "

He launches forward, but not at me. Deanna grabs Enid and Carl snatches her back, pushing both of them away from each other to the ground. I aim at Deanna's face, but Carl swings around and shoves me to the floor.

"You're not killing it!" he yells, faltering to his feet. I glare up at him, breathless. He just turns to Deanna and holds her down with a boot against her chest.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Enid asks, helping me up.

"You wouldn't understand,” he retorts. I retrieve my gun and clutch my stomach, snatching my backpack for my inhaler. Deanna growls under him. "You don't wanna be out here, you said it... so go home."

Enid turns on her heel and leaves.

I stand there, lost.

"Just go, Oliver..."

And I do.

* * *

 

"See that bright one? Yeah. That's the North Star. It's at the end of The Little Dipper. Yeah, Judith... if you get lost at night just find that star."

"Hey."

"Hey, Michonne.”

"Have a good day?"

"Guess so... I'm gonna take her in."

"Carl—”

"Did Oliver tell you?"

"No. He didn't have to. I saw... You brought Deanna to us. You should have left her, or killed her."

"No, that's stupid."

"What's _stupid_ is you being out there when you don't have to."

"You'd do the same thing. You and Spencer didn't have to go out there, but you did."

“That’s different.”

"It's _not_. I wasn't gonna leave her out there like that. _You_ wouldn't. You _wouldn't!_ I know it. And I couldn't kill her—"

"Why not?"

" _Because!_ ”

"You _could_ have killed her, Carl."

"No, I _couldn't._ I wouldn't."

"Were you playing some sort of game out there? Did you think that—"

" _No!_ "

"Then why?"

"Because it should be someone who loves her. Someone who's family. And I... I'd do it for you... I would."

"Come here..."

* * *

 

That night, I wake up to tapping on my window. Squint through the black. Carl’s standing on the roof, his silhouette starling with the moon behind his head. I curse and get up, feeling groggy while I throw on a shirt.

I point to the hallway and Carl meets me at the part of roof closest to its window. I poke my head outside, whisper, “You can use the front door, you know...”

And he says, “Oh. Well... can you just let me in your window.”

And I say, “It’s broken. You broke it, remember?”

And he doesn’t say anything.

“I’d let you in Noah or Carol’s room but they’re in there sleeping...”

He sighs.

“Meet you downstairs, man.”

And he does.

"Are we still friends?" he asks as I open the door. "Are we... friends... still?"

"Err... yes?"

He sighs. “Great.”

I scoff.

"What?" he asks.

"Nothing," I say, laughing, "I mean, you're just — You came here in the middle of the night... to ask me... if we're still friends?"

He shrugs. "Guess."

“Okay. Why?”

"How I acted earlier. I just... didn’t have the words to explain. Sometimes... Sometimes I have things to say, but...”

“It’s okay. I get it. I have that too?”

“Brain damage?”

I laugh. “Whatever, asshole.”

He laughs, too, and then his smile fades. “I thought you and Enid hated me."

I shrug. "Enid might, for a while. But if you make her hot coco she'll forgive you soon enough. Usually works for me.”

Carl seems to appreciate the advice. He tugs his bandage to make sure it’s covering his socket. “Couldn’t sleep,” he admits. “I think I could heard Dad and Michonne doing it together.”

“Oh...” _Blunt._ “Wow. Err...”

“Yeah.”

I laugh and he seems glad.

"You okay with it?" I ask.

He shrugs. "Why wouldn’t I be?”

I can tell he isn’t hung up on it, so I move on. "Did they find anything today? Your dad and Daryl?”

“Some guy."

“Some guy?”

“No food.”

“Crap.”

“Yeah. Crap.”

"What's the guy like?"

"He tried to rob them. He's knocked out in the brownstone apartment for now. Can I come inside?"

"Oh. Right. Sorry, yeah, come in... Did they bring anything back?"

"Don't know. Dad was pretty tired, I didn't ask."

We sit on the couch and put our feet up on the coffee table, hands in our laps and eyes heavy. We sit in quiet for a while.

"Why does your breath smell like baking soda?" I ask finally.

"We ran out of toothpaste. Michonne made some. It's a little strong."

I huff and grin. "We ran out, too, last week. Carol's been making us use soap."

"Soap?"

" _Soap,_ man."

He cackles softly and mumbles, "Smells nice."

I get awkward and quiet again, thinking about what Enid said today, about how he and I are best friends, but not like she and him.

"Wait here," I say, and tiptoe upstairs to my room, where I fetch a home-made plush from under my bed and go back down to him with it. "I made it for Judith. Carol taught me how — tried, at least."

"What is it?"

Quietly, I laugh at myself. "It's meant to be a cat.”

“Looks like a frog."

I feel my face go hot.

“I love it," he adds.

I scoff and tuck my legs up to my chest, facing him with my cheek on the backrest of the couch. “Its name is Patty, because my brother would hate that.”

Carl grins and holds Patty up by its ears. One is dark-brown, the other lighter. Most of the rest of its body is a mismatch of browns too, from old jeans to T-shirts, except it's belly, which is from Michonne's old white blouse. It even has a tail and buttons for eyes; one blue and the other yellow.

“Judith'll love it.” He puts the cat on the coffee table and we slouch in quiet for a while longer.

"Carl?”

“Hm.”

“Why'd you do it, today?"

“I... I'm sorry. I had to do it for Spencer. I had to let him put his mom down.”

“Have... you been looking for her for a while?”

"What?”

"You always want to go out there with us," I elaborate. "It just... seems, lately... like you've been looking for something... someone."

"Not Deanna,” he says. He looks at me. “I was looking for Nell.”

I get this uncomfortable pit in my chest.

He sighs. “I know she died on the quarry run. I just... I figured she would've turned and followed the herd to Alexandria. But it's been months. Nell had nobody. Just Enid and you and me and Mikey. Then he died. You...” He stops, sighs again, and says, “I just... wanted it to be one of us."

I watch him, inhaling. "Thanks, man."

He nods and frowns, as if he’s trying to concentrate. "I remember what you told me about your parents,” he says eventually. “And I've been thinking for a while now — I even talked to Dad about it. I think you should go home. _Your_ home. And... I think you should put your mom and dad down."

I stare at him.

He shrugs and looks away. "It’s okay if you don’t want to."

“No. I do. I just... Thank you. For asking him. It means a lot. I think I just sort of lost my courage to do it myself.”

“That’s okay. I do too.” He looks at me again and smiles. “We're kids. That's what they do."

“Yeah, well, we’re not kids.”

“You sound like Enid.”

“Well she’s right. We aren’t. We’ve done things that kids aren’t supposed to do.”

“Like make love?” he asks.

I blink and clear my throat, trying not to think about how old we were the first time he crawled down between my legs to blow me, but I'm pretty sure there's a neon fluorescent tattoo on my face that reads 'barely fourteen' with a crappy sketch of Grady’s sixth floor supply closet door right beside it.

“I meant that we’ve had to kill people, and do bad stuff, not... that.”

Carl shrugs in agreement. “Yeah. Killing someone’s way more serious than—”

“Yeah, man.”

“Yeah.”

I laugh and look at him. At his bandage. He can tell, and he tugs it.

“Sorry,” I say. “Didn’t mean to stare. I know it sucks when people stare.”

“Can’t blame them. It’s ugly.”

“Yeah, it is,” I say, which makes him laugh.

We smile at each other. His eye droops slowly.

“Tired?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he whispers.

“Okay. Come upstairs.”

“Okay.”

_This is a song for a scribbled out name_   
_And my love keeps writing again and again_   
_And again_

_I'll dance myself up_   
_Drunk myself down_   
_Find people to love_   
_Left people to drown_   
_I'm not scared to jump_   
_I'm not scared to fall_   
_If there was nowhere to land_   
_I wouldn't be scared_   
_At all_   
_Fall..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Falling by Florence and the Machine; might be a bit of a foreshadower, too...
> 
> Patty is andytweed's imaginary cat and to see a photo check out her tumblr (there's a fanart somewhere of Patty and my pet whippet hugging each other) Thanks for letting me use Patty in this, Ando.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	93. Season 6 ~ Knots Untied: Losers

I wake up with a post-it note stuck to the centre of my face.

_THANKS FOR PATTY_   
_P.S. USED SOME BANDAGE FROM THE CABINET_   
_– C. J. GRIMES_

And later in the morning, Noah leaves and tells me Carol told him to do laundry and that he’s telling me to do it for him because he has things to do. I hate doing laundry, so I decide I'll do it later. I go next door.

Inside, people are sitting around the living room table, talking about our arsenal. Rick, Michonne, Carl, Maggie, Glenn, Abraham and Daryl, and another man I don’t know, wearing a beanie and a trench coat, sitting at the foot of the table with his back to the window. He has pale skin, a beard, and long, flowing brunette hair.

He smiles at me. “Hello there. I'm Jesus." I think he says Jesus, at least. But sometimes I hear things.

Chairs scrape awkwardly as the others turn to look at me. I must look like a wound-up toy because Michonne says, "It's okay, Oliver."

“We brought him last night,” Rick says.

I nod.

"As I was saying,” Jesus says, “Your arsenal is impressive but your provisions are low. Very low for the amount of people you have. Fifty-four?"

"More than that," Maggie says.

He knows so much. It sets my skin on edge, like I’m a body at wrong frequency. Carl has his handgun under his palm on the table-top, a finger tapping the grip. I must still look put off because Abraham nods to me, frowning, so I ease up and sit.

"Well, I appreciate the cooking,” Jesus says. “My compliments to the chef."

"Yeah, well, she ain't here," Daryl growls.

"Look, we got off to a bad start. But we're on the same side. The living side. You and Rick had every reason to leave me out there. But you didn't."

Daryl glares at him, thwarted.

"I'm from a place a lot like this one," Jesus goes on. "Part of my job is searching out other settlements to trade with. I took your truck because my community needs things, and both of you looked like trouble..."

_This, coming from the man who robbed us, lost our shit, broke out of confinement, and crept around our community all night._

I cross my arms.

"I was wrong," Jesus admits. "You're good people. And this is a good place. I think our communities may in be a position to help each other."

"Do you have food?" Glenn asks.

"And medicine?" Noah adds, since he’s going on a fortnight run with Tara and Heath soon to find some.

"We've got a doctor. We've started to raise livestock. We scavenge. We grow. Everything from tomatoes to sorghum."

_Well, at least Eugene will be satisfied._

Rick points. "Tell us why we should believe you."

"I'll show you," Jesus says. "Take a car. I can take you back home in a day." I get déjà vu of Aaron telling us the same thing a year ago. "You can all see who we are and what we have to offer."

"Wait," Maggie interjects. "You're lookin' for more settlements? You mean you were already trading with other groups?"

Jesus sits back, looking us all in the eye one at a time. He grins like everything's about to go his way, like he's ready to walk on water, heal the sick, turn bread and wine to flesh and blood.

"Your worlds about to get a whole lot bigger."

* * *

 

"You sure about this?"

"No. But if he's telling the truth, this could be the start of everything."

"Look, I was gonna tell you about Michonne but... it just happened. It _just_ happened. Last night. This is different."

"It's cool, Dad."

"Listen, I heard you comin' in this mornin', early. Where'd you go last night?"

"Oh, uh... Oliver’s."

“Everything okay? You both don’t need to sneak around."

"No. Yeah, I’m fine. It wasn’t like that... Dad, can I ask you something?”

“Mmm.”

"When can we go to Lorton?"

"Soon."

"We could go today."

"We're gonna be a few hours doing this. Won't be back 'til the evening."

"No, I mean, just me and him."

“M-hm?”

"Dad... come on."

"You can't even drive yet."

"Can. Glenn’s been giving me and Oliver lessons.”

“He has? Even after how it went when I tried to give you lessons?”

“Yes. I _know_ which one the break is now — har har. Look, Lorton's only down the road. If we took a car we'd be back in two hours."

“Hmm.”

“What?”

“You know you look like your mother when you argue.”

" _Dad..._ ”

"Carl."

"We can handle ourselves.”

"Yes, you can. But you’re not going. Not today. Go get your stuff. Gabriel can take care of Judith while we're gone."

"I'm not coming. Someone's gotta stay back. Keep this place safe. Plus, kid with a messed-up face probably wouldn't be the best first impression either..."

“Carl...”

"Rick, come on! Let's chew up some asphalt!"

“See you, son.”

“Yep.”

* * *

 

I invite Carl over once everybody is gone, since he didn’t go with them. I didn’t either, and when he asks why, I tell him, “Don’t like people.”

He grins, putting Judith on the rug in the living room. I go to the couch and pick up a book called _This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It_. Thankfully, it's not full of spiders. After a while Judith is fussing for me, so I put her on my lap and asks her how her day's been and she tells me about a beetle she was playing with earlier, and soon she climbs off my lap, bored, and looks through a picture book on the floor.

Carl’s looking at my shoulder and I realise my sleeve’s ridden up — I pull it down, pretend not to think anything of the bruises. Luckily he does the same.

"Where's Carol?" he asks.

"Out, in the forest." I look up at the window. Clouds are coming in. “She better come back soon or she’ll be caught in the rain...”

“It’s freaky,” Carl says, “how you do that.”

I shrug this off and ask, “Did Judy like the cat?”

“Crap. I forgot to give it to her.”

For a few minutes he leaves us alone to go find it, then returns to introduce them. She falls in love immediately. Carl and I watch her play for a minute, legs crossed on the couch.

"I talked to Dad about going to Lorton." He seems to not want to continue, so he asks, “Do you still hurt yourself?”

“What — what kind of question is that?”

“Sorry, just worried. You make yourself feel bad about yourself — I know that.”

“Listen, man... you don’t need to worry about me,” I say, hating this.

“I just mean... I do that too, sometimes. Make myself feel bad, especially about the way I look now. It’s dumb but... it’s better around you, you know? You look at me like I’m normal. You understand.”

“Know what I think?” I ask.

“What?”

“I think we're losers.”

Carl laughs.

“I think we’re wrecks,” I go on, “and too stubborn, and we’re missing parts. I’ve got too many scars and you’re kind of rude, sometimes...”

“But?”

“Nothing,” I say, laughing, “I’m finished. That was all I wanted to say.”

Carl rolls his eyes and slouches back, slinging his legs over my lap. He looks at his hands for a minute.

"Your dad said no, didn’t he?” I say.

Carl looks at me, surprised, and nods. "He did say we could go. Just not alone.” He has this frustrated look in his face. “I just figured that they're gonna be busy with Hilltop for a while... and yeah, they’ll be back soon, but it won't be the end of it. We'll have to trade. Let people come here. Let some of us go over there. Whatever. It’s all just gonna put Lorton further back in priority."

I don't say anything because he’s right.

He goes quiet for a while. “I’m gonna go home. I’m not feeling great. See you later?”

“Wait. You sure? I think Enid’s going to come over soon.”

“Yeah...” He looks uncomfortable. “See you.”

“See you, man.”

He leaves with his sister and I go in my room and slump across my bed, startle and almost fall off when I hear a small, "Hi?" from across the room.

"Jesus!"

"No," Enid says. "That’s the new guy.”

“Funny, Tink,” I say; the nickname’s because of something Pan said: _‘Fairies have to be one thing or the other, because being so small, they unfortunately have room for one feeling only at a time. They are, however, allowed to change, only it must be a complete change.’_ And I figure Enid suits that description.

I put a book in my pocket and head downstairs to get a start on laundry. Bean is waiting outside on the porch, so I let him in.

"What're you gonna do today?" Enid asks me.

"Masturbate furiously."

"No... " She goes to the cupboard and retrieves a Granola bar, then pours a glass of water. She hands them to me. "You’re going to cut my hair.”

I sigh and mutter things in Italian until she tells me not to, so I say, “Can we do it some other time?”

She rolls her eyes, but accepts, and tells me it’ll give her time to finish up some things at the pantry, so she leaves and I eat and drink and play ukulele and serenaded _More Than a Feeling_ to Bean, who stuck around. I ride my skateboard through the kitchen into the living room because nobody is here to tell me not to. I nose through the things Carol brought back from the pantry before she left; arrowroot starch, water chestnut, sliced beetroot, and some weird jar half-full of something that looks like coffee but doesn’t taste like it. Then I decide to sneak into Carol’s bedroom and look through her things. I spray some perfume and walk under it like they do in movies, then put on one of her cardigans and go back downstairs and bury my nose in my book for a while and when I look up, someone’s coming in through the front door.

Carol’s covered in blood.

"It's okay,” she tells me. “Not mine. A walker."

I relax.

She sets down my machete and a bucket filled with something.

"What's that?" I ask.

"Acorns." She unsticks bloody fingers. "I'm gonna take a shower. Could you take your machete back for me? When you get back, pre-heat the oven and wash your hands — hand, please."

“Yes, ma’am.”

* * *

 

A while after I get back from the armoury and pre-heated the oven, I hear Carol moving about upstairs. I go up and knock on her bedroom door.

"Yeah?"

"Want me to put the acorns in?" I ask through the shut door.

"Yeah, thanks."

I'm about to leave, but she calls me back and opens the door a tiny bit and sticks a freckly, damp arm out.

"This?" She holds out a dark green shirt on a hanger for a few seconds. Then her hand disappears and comes back with a floral blouse. "Or this?"

"Err... flowers are cool."

"You sure? I wear it all the time."

"I like it," I say, "like I like your mom jeans, and your old-people shoes, and when you carry a rifle like a purse, with grenades in your purse for no reason."

“You know about that?"

"Carl told me."

I hear her huff.

"I like the floral,” I say again.

"Maybe," she replies, "if I put my blue cardigan over it."

I back away. “Cool. Later!"

"Oliver... can I have my cardigan back?" Sighing, I take it off and hand it over. “And quit putting my clothes back in the wrong places.”

I grin and she closes her door again and I spend the next few minutes putting acorns into trays and baking them until she comes down and goes about preparing a large batch of cookies. I sit at the foot of the staircase with Bean and my book.

_‘The zombie looks like a man, walks like a man, eats and otherwise functions fully, yet is devoid of the spark. It represents the nagging doubt that lays deep in the heart of even the most zealous believer: behind all of your pretty songs and stained glass, this is what you really are. Shambling meat. Our true fear of the zombie was never that its bite would turn us into one of them. Our fear is that we are already zombies.’_

I’ve never heard the word zombie before but they sound a lot like walkers, only more political. I get another headache. Makes my eyes hurt, so I look up at things further away like the kitchen stools and the trees outside and Carol while she mixes.

"Beetroot?" I ask, because the contents of her bowl has turned a brilliant shade of magenta.

Carol makes a proud _uh-huh_ noise. "Instead of apples."

"Instead of eggs."

" _Exactly._ "

I don't know how I feel about this, like I didn't know how I felt about the apples, only this time I'm even more apprehensive. I pet Bean's coat and day dream about rainbow cookies, and at one point, Carol asks how my day was. I tell her it was fine. We talk about Hilltop and Jesus and then she gives me tips about how I should cut Enid's hair because I ask, and then she’s just looking at me.

“What?” I ask.

“Are you okay?”

I shrug. Smile. “Gotta be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you dearpureblood for the music on 8tracks. The two playlists are called 'Just Oliver' and 'We're a whole person. We are sempiternal'.
> 
> Thanks, Fede for the Italian help.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	94. Season 6 ~ Not Tomorrow Yet, Part 1: Rain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Possible self-harm triggers.

_‘And when the flames come up_   
_I see the fire in your eyes_   
_And when the flames come up_   
_I can hear alone wolf cry..’_

It begins to rain.

Carol already left with a million Tupperware boxes of cookies to share around the community. I sit by side door open, grey clouds outside and the sound of rain closeted around the house, munching cookies and practicing ukulele — then Enid’s coming along the street so I smack my bandage to the strings to silence them.

I listen to the rain. Hard and heavy and clean.

"Hi?"

I wave.

She steps up enough to be out of the downpour. "Didn't know you could still play with one hand."

I shrug, flushing; I don't play in front of people anymore.

"Helps my headaches," I mumble. "But if I do it too long my scar hurts. Bandage helps, but... still can't do much... kinda have to work around it to make it sound right... uh, sorry. Rambling."

She smirks, petting Bean who’s just woken up from a nap.

"Been busy?" I ask.

She shrugs. "Carol gave me cookies. They were pink," she says; pixie-sweet all over right now.

“Yeah.”

Her sweetness dissolves into worry.

"What is it?" I ask.

"They're back," she says. "Rick and the others. Parked up outside the pantry a little while ago." She looks at me very carefully. "They're holding a meeting. I heard Rick tell Carol there's gonna be a fight."

"Where are they?"

She sighs. "The church."

* * *

 

While everybody is inside the church, Enid and I find a secluded spot outside under one of the windows, out of the rain. Rick explains about someone called Craig, who’s Jesus’ friend from Hilltop. Craig was taken captive by a different group, the Saviors, yesterday. The Saviors are the Hilltop Colony's rivalries, or... bosses. It’s hard to tell. But the stick of it is that they’re some big, bad, scary group that likes to take undeserved ownership of things that don't belong to them.

_Sounds like some kind of lame comic book plot or something.  
**Only it's real.**_

In order to get Craig back, someone else from Hilltop, Craig’s brother, was blackmailed by the Saviors to betray and kill their leader, Gregory, but Rick killed him, saved Gregory, and in doing that earned us all the food they brought back, only _also_ doing that has made Alexandria aware of how close to home the Saviors are, which makes us vulnerable.

Carol, Noah, Daryl, Rick, Michonne, Glenn, Maggie, Rosita, Abraham, Tara, Heath, Gabriel and Jesus are going to go to the Saviors’ compound tomorrow, along with another guy from Hilltop, Andy, who can help. We work with them in exchange for food. In exchange for safety. The Saviours already tried to kill Sasha and Daryl and Abraham out on the road once, but they were killed, and sooner or later the rest of them would have come to find us, like those Wolves did, like Jesus did.

“They woulda killed someone, or some of us, and then they would try to _own_ us, and we would try to stop them. But by then, in that kind of fight, low on food, we could lose. This is the only way to be sure, as sure as we can get, that we win."

I'm looking at the faux on Enid's coat and she’s watching a beetle crawl up the church wall next to my hand. It has small rain droplets on its shell, and dark rainbows shimmer in its blackness. I leave it alone, even when it scurries across my thumb.

"And we have to win,” Rick goes on. “We do this for the Hilltop, it's how we keep this place — it's how we feed this place. This needs to be a group decision. If anybody objects, here's your chance to say your piece."

"You're sure we can do it?" Morgan. "We can beat them?"

I grind my teeth, thinking about what Noah told me and made me swear on my life I wouldn't tell anybody: Noah said that when the herd came, he hid with Rosita, Tara and Eugene in a brownstone apartment garage. Morgan, Carol and Denise were in there, too. So was a Wolf. The leader. Morgan had been hiding him in there to try to rehabilitate him. Carol tried to kill him but Morgan threw her down and knocked her out, and then the Wolf attacked Morgan and took Denise captive, Carol managed to finally kill him.

"Yes,” Rick answers, “I'm sure."

"Then all we have to do is just tell them," Morgan says.

"They don't compromise."

"This isn't a compromise. It's a choice. It's a way out, for them and for us."

"We try and talk to the Saviors, we give up our advantage, our safety? No, we have to come for _them_ before they come for us. We can't leave them alive."

"Where there's life, there's possibility."

"Of them hitting us!"

"We're not trapped in this. None of you are trapped in this."

"Morgan... They always come back."

"Come back when they're dead, too."

"Yeah, we'll stop them," Rick says. "We have before."

"I'm not talkin' about the walkers."

"Morgan wants to talk to them first," Rick tells everybody. "I think that would be a mistake, but it's not up to me. I'll talk to the people still at home. I'll discuss it with the people on guard now, too, but who else wants to approach the Saviors, talk to them first?"

"What happened here, we won't let that happen again," Aaron is saying. "I won't."

I look at Enid. I can't tell what she's thinking. I’m thinking that The Saviors are a threat and that they need to die. Because after all this time reading comics and singing songs and eating cookies, I forgot. I’m the bad guy.

"Looks like it's settled," Rick says finally. "We know exactly what this is. We don't shy from it, we live. We kill them all."

_GO THROUGH THE FENCES._   
_IN YOUR CARS._   
_GET YOUR GUNS._   
_WE GO IN._   
_KILL THEM ALL!_

"We don't all have to kill," Rick goes on. "But... if people are gonna stay here, they do have to accept it."

Everybody starts to leave and Enid and I aren’t spotted only because she grabs my collar and pulls us away.

"Come over tomorrow," I tell her, "for your hair."

She smiles and I go back. Bean’s not around, probably gone back to Enid’s, but Carl’s sitting on his porch next door, Judith playing with Patty. He comes down to greet me.

“Hey.”

“Hey, man.”

It's still raining. I blink away dew from my eyelashes. See them forming in his hair.

_Carl’s the kind of boy who belongs to the rain._

"I'm overdue," he says, squinting. "I... I was meant to make Noah a wooden keychain yesterday but I haven't finished it yet. Could you tell him?"

"Yeah. Sure."

He nods in thanks.

“Are you feeling any better?” I ask.

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry about that. I just... I get caught up sometimes. I forget that, you know, we’re not... That you don’t...”

“Don’t what?”

“Nothing... forget it. Just... sorry I ran my mouth like that. I know you’ll put your parents down one day. You don’t need me going on about it all the time.”

Hearing this makes me feel very lonely very suddenly, and the sadness hits me, like I've just lost my breath. I can't tell if he notices, but he must because his smile twitches away.

“It’s cool,” I say. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Later, man.”

Inside, I leave my raincoat to dry on the rack and get to doing mirror therapy in my bedroom alone. Today it doesn't help. I lie back on the floor and stare at the ceiling. I hear Noah arrive home. He must know I’m in here because he knocks once and says, “I’ll be in my room,” and then minutes later I can hear him scribbling into his notes, tapping his feet to the wood floor, his chair scraping sometimes. I can also hear Carl doing physical therapy over in his house.

_Thonk._   
_Thonk._   
_Thonk._   
_Thonk._

Someone else comes into the house. They're heading up the staircase. When they knock on my door I sit up and say, "Avanti, avanti," and Carol walks in. She goes to the window and shuts it — the _thonk_ ing stops. I push the mirror back under my bed. Carol goes around my room collecting laundry, and then she stands there, and she tells me she left a cookie for Sam on his grave today.

I don’t say anything because there’s nothing to say.

"Did you hear about tomorrow?" she asks.

"Yeah," I say, skipping out how.

She sighs. "I'm gonna talk to Rick about you coming with us, if you want. But I wanted to ask you first."

"Oh," I say. Last time I left the wall was for a driving lesson, and sure, I can shoot a hand gun and use a knife alright, but — "Do you think he'll be okay with it? I mean, I'll go into the compound but—"

"No, no," Carol interrupts me. She grabs my chair and sets it in front of me, sitting on it backwards. "You’re gonna be waiting outside, keeping watch with me while the others go in."

I frown. "Then, why am I going?"

She takes a breath. "Rick talked to me about something, earlier. I’ve been thinking about it for months, really.”

“What?” I ask.

“Lorton," Carol says. I might laugh at her for this, I can’t tell. Maybe I just cough. "Carl mentioned it to Rick. Several times, by what Rick says. How come you never talked to me about this?"

I shrug. "Just wasn't important enough."

"Of course it is," she says. "We've been in Alexandria almost a year."

Again, I shrug.

Carol sighs. I listen to the rain outside and watch her eyes. They’re that strange type of silver that I feel like I've grown up with, and I have, really. Still rusting, even if she hides it. I'm scared of Carol rusting away completely.

"Me and you," Carol says. "We'll go. Once they're done in the compound. You and me are gonna take a car to Lorton so you can put your parents down."

I don't say anything. I’m giving her time to take it back if she needs to, like I already know this is never going to happen.

"Oliver?"

I blink a few times.

She crouches in front of me, puts a hand on my cheek, and kisses the side of my head. I tell her, “Thank you,” and she tells me, “I'll go make supper,” and then she steps over to the door but stops. “Oh. Did you move my cigarettes?”

I shrug.

"Oliver..."

"Those things will kill you," I answer, but see the desperate look in her face and relent. "In the fridge — where you used to hide the chocolate."

She glares at me. "Yeah, but you kept stealing it."

"You wouldn't have looked there though, right?"

She sighs.

"Where do you keep the chocolate now, by the way?"

She doesn't answer me, instead says, "Thank you," and makes to leave again.

"Carol?"

"Yeah.”

"Are you alright?"

"Have to be."

* * *

 

Late that night, I wake from a nightmare about dying children. Outside, it’s still raining. I lay there trembling and wide awake — after sleeping all evening since supper, along with most of the others, to be ready for tomorrow, I know I won’t sleep again for a while.

I pray into my knuckles.

 _Dear, God._  
Tomorrow.  
I'm afraid of tomorrow.  
...amen.

I don't pray a lot, hardly ever, but this prayer’s stuck in my head since falling asleep, since the rain. Because I am afraid of tomorrow. I know that prayers are meant to be asking for things, or, I don't know, counting your blessings, but there just isn't anything else I want to say. I am just afraid. And then I start to bruise myself. My arm is still sore — I can only reach the one, so I do it on my stomach and chest instead. I stop after long enough, when my head spins and I start to feel floaty, like some drug high. A hurt to dull the hurt.

**_Handle this.  
_ ** _I can't._   
_**There's something wrong with you.**_   
_I know._

I hear someone, Carol, walking along the hallway — listen to her leave the house. After a while, I get up and go to her room because mine is too miserable. I like Carol's bedroom. I like the brown-cream-patterned sheets and the matching curtains. I like the tall brown lamp on her night stand and all the lotions and perfumes she's got, like jasmine and amber and lavender. She's left her journal on the bedside table. It's open, and I do that thing where I only catch one word and can't look away...

_'R_   
_K, D_   
_L_   
_Terminus/Courtyard 3?_   
_Candle Woman 4_   
_Ws 7_

_(18)'_

It's a list of people she's killed. She’s been gone a while. I get worried, so I go looking for her. She isn't outside on the porch. Not in the moonlit, rainy street.

 **_What if she left?  
_ ** _She wouldn't... again._

I head for the name wall, thinking maybe she’s sitting and smoking in the shelter of the gazebo. I'm half way there before I spot her — the small, blurry, orange glow of a cigarette between her fingers.  A smoke cloud leaves her mouth as she turns for the lake.

"Those things'll kill you."

She stops in the middle of the street at Tobin's voice. He's sitting on his porch. I hide before either of them see me. Carol sighs.

"I've heard," she says.

"You got another one?" he asks.

"Not for you."

"Why's that?"

" _'Cause._ Asshole."

"Okay...”

I think she'll walk away but she sits with him, out of the rain.

"Couldn't sleep either?" Tobin asks.

"Never could sleep," Carol replies.

"Hm — Hey. Why’s your pack so cold?"

"Oliver," Carol replies, "hid them in the fridge again."

Tobin chuckles.

"He's got a habit of tryin'a save my life."

Tobin makes a noise. "Terrible."

"Gotta remember to thank him, one day."

"Worried about tomorrow," Tobin tells her.

"You goin'?" she asks him.

"No. You are... You can do things that... just terrify me."

"How? How do you think I do those things?"

"You're a mom..."

"I was."

"You _are_.”

"No — Oliver... He doesn't see me as that. Can't... not anymore."

Guilt hits me in the stomach.

"No," Tobin insists. "It... it's not the cookies or the... smiles. It's the hard stuff. The scary stuff. It's... _how_ you can do it. It's strength. You're a mom to that boy. You're a mom to most of the people here."

"To you, too?"

"No. You're somethin' else to me."

I don't see it but I know they kiss. Carol says, "It's not tomorrow yet," and I decide that I should’ve left a long time ago. It wasn't my place to come after her tonight. She is trying, and she deserves to be alright, we all do, so I leave, feeling too lonely and too desperate. I can hardly stand it.

Then I’m standing outside Enid’s house, breathless. Olivia keeps the pantry and the armoury secure, but I know they keep their door unlocked, so I go in and up to Enid’s room. I kneel by her bed and shake her shoulders to wake her.

Her eyes widen when she sees me and I tell her, “I like you.”

She rubs her face, squinting. “What?”

“What?” I ask.

“Oliver, what the hell?”

I sigh. “Sorry. I just... I wanted to tell you.”

She watches me.

I say it again. “I like you.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I... right. Yeah. That’s understandable.”

She frowns. “You shouldn’t say it if you don’t mean it.”

“What if I do?” I ask. “What if I just don’t know in what way yet?”

“Are... you asking to kiss me?”

“I think so...”

“Well, do you want to?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“Okay,” she says. “Cool...” so I kiss her. It isn't some ground-breaking experience, like I'd been expecting. There’s no flame embers or big red curtains rolling across the stage to finalise the performance. It just happens.

I pull back to check her face.

“Sorry. Was that okay?”

“Yeah. It was cool.”

“Can I do it again?”

“Yeah.”

We kiss again and we start laughing while we kiss. All this time I thought I knew everything about kissing. It didn't occur to me until now that Enid and I could make an entirely new kind of kissing. We’re just kissing. Kissing like Enid and I kiss. Kissing like we’re not two kids in love.

She lets me change into some dry clothes. And she lets me stay over — I stretch out on my back along her bed and very carefully Enid sits on my stomach, and very quietly, she asks me if I want her. I shake my head. I apologise. But Enid shakes her head too. She smiles. She says she doesn't want me either. So I ask her if she wants to kiss me again and she nods so I tell her I want to kiss her again, too. Her hair falls over her shoulder, tickles my collarbones. Nose to nose. Breathing. I touch her hand, the same way I did in Nowhere that day.

She smiles.

“Cool...”

And I kiss her. We kiss for a while — I’m not sure how long, but I get sleepy after long and the kissing slows to nothing at all and we curl up together under the blankets, face-to-face. We don't say anything at all. We just listen to the rain outside. The rain and the insects and the air and the fall night, until we drift into sleep.

_‘Maybe you are stronger than I was_   
_But trust me ‘cause I know_   
_The woods get what they want_   
_The wolves will chase you down_   
_Then bring you to your knees_   
_Run you ragged to the ground_   
_Just like they did to me...’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was Hell by Olivver the Kid. As well as just the name/band being sickeningly ironic and disgustingly coincidental, it's actually like a super pretty fucking amazing song. Thanks for the playlist, dearpureblood. (Find it on 8tracks dot com "Just Oliver")
> 
> I would like to point out the character development from chapter 5 to 14. . . Oliver chose not to squash the beetle this time.
> 
> Disclaimer: I'm British, so I spell Saviors like Saviours, so excuse me if I get that muddled.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	95. Season 6 ~ Not Tomorrow Yet, Part 2: Mood

“ _Het-hem..._ ”

As I wake up, a pair of thick, black, square spectacles are glaring down at me. I startle, pushing myself back into Enid, who is warm and sleeping.

“Hello,” Olivia says.

“Olivia.” I rub my eyes, pull my comforter up. A headache starts.

“Enid?”

She stirs and glances over her shoulder, hair flopping messy across her face. Olivia’s hip pops out. She's carrying a laundry basket under her arm. I see my pants inside it.

“ _Enid..._ ”

She sits up, frowning.

“What’s he doing here?”

“Relax,” Enid groans.

Olivia pushed her glasses up her nose. “You could at least tell me you've got someone over. I live here, too.”

“Yeah, well that's why people usually knock.”

“Yeah, well...” Olivia snatches my shirt from the floor and shakes it. “I didn't think you'd have _shirtless_ guests!”

“He’s not shirtless.”

Enid pulls the covers down.

“He’s wearing _my_ blouse!” Olivia complains. I’m wearing Enid’s polka-dotted pink pyjama pants, too. Thankfully, Enid doesn’t feel the need to show Olivia those.

“His clothes were wet.”

Olivia huffs. “Enid, you said you'd help me with supplying for their run today.”

I sit bolt upright.

Olivia frowns at me.

Bean's watches from the floor.

“Shit, what time is it?” I ask, scampering out of the bed and pulling on my sneakers.

Olivia steps back. “About half-seven.”

“I gotta go,” I blurt, already down the hallway and running out of the house through the pantry. Bean follows me, but stops once I’m on the street. I see the cars still parked along the wall as I head back to my house, then fate pulls a short-straw because Carol and I manage to turn down our street from opposite blocks at almost the same moment.

The rain stopped early this morning. The ground is damp and the air is humid and cool and smells of petrichor.

“Where've you been?” Carol asks me, meeting me on the side-walk.

“Where have you been?” I ask in the same tone.

It seems to be hard to look at each other. We head to the second house without answering each other. Carol still has the upper hand, since she at least managed to return in her own attire.

In the house, I get ready for the run, then go next door to hand out with Carl before I have to go — Carol told me to take the leftover cookies and roasted acorns with me.

Inside the first house, Rick and Michonne are in the kitchen. They're both grinning at the battery-operated baby monitor. Rick is hugging her from behind with his chin tucked into the crook of her neck and they’re whispering and giggling. I've never heard Rick giggle. I’m pulling awkward faces when they notice me. They step apart, pinking.

“Hey,” “Oliver.”

They glance at each other. Michonne grins. Rick clears his throat.

“Carol said to give you these,” I tell them. They take a few acorns each from the container and share a cookie and tell me to share the other with Carl. “He upstairs?”

“Yeah,” “probably still asleep.”

Carl’s still asleep when I tiptoe across his bedroom and crouch in front of him. I lean in close and sing, “Gr _iiii_ mes.”

His nose twitches.

“Show me your blue, young sir,” I say, and he does. “Hey, man.”

Carl smiles. “Hey.”

“I want to start getting into piano,” I tell him. “Denise taught me some parts of _Für Elise_ on hers. She did the right hand and I did the left, and I did okay, except when she started trying to teach me _Rondo alla Turca —_ I got so invested trying to keep up with her that I fell off my chair. Denise laughed so hard she had to take a break.”

Carl laughs.

I watch that happen.

“I brought cookies,” I say.

“Why are you in such a good mood?” he asks me.

I shrug. “Feeling good this morning.”

“You weren’t feeling good yesterday.”

Another shrug. Wanting to change the subject, I clamber up and jump across the bed to sit beside him. The mattress bounces. Carl peers at the ceiling and rubs his face.

“You’re going to Lorton,” he says after a moment, “Dad told me last night.”

Smiling, I cuff my jean legs twice over and decide I like them that way, like how Glenn wears them. “Can't, really... figure out what I'm feeling about it all, just yet.” I shrug. “Maybe I’m a walker.”

“Time do you go?” he asks.

“Noon.”

I realise I forgot my inhalers this morning. Jumping across beds and running through communities isn't a good idea when you're asthmatic.

“Boys?”

“Yep!”

“We’re headed out. Four hours, Oliver, then we go!”

“Okay!”

Rick and Michonne go.

I cough and Carl watches me, then gets up, grabs my sleeve, and pulls me off the bed into the hallway and into the bathroom. He roots through the mirror-cupboard, then supplies me with three boxed inhalers. Green. Brown. Blue. “Whoa, you've got the green! I thought I'd ran out.”

“No,” Carl answers. “Wait—how long’ve you not been using it?”

“Week?”

“Why the hell didn't you tell anybody?!”

“I didn’t tell _you_. I told the others. Why would I tell you? I didn’t know you keep spares.”

“Of course we do!”

I take my inhalers. “Thanks, man.”

He just nods.

“Oh. Carol's cookies,” I say. “They're pink.”

We go downstairs. I flip the music on while he goes in the kitchen. As the music starts I turn it up and bob my head to the beat. When I jump down the last two steps of the staircase, I slide across the floor to stop directly in front of Carl as he comes out to find me. He startles and I grab his hat and put it on my head, laughing at the way part of his fringe flips up, and then I start to serenade him...

“ _Why do you build me up_  
 _–build me up–_  
 _Buttercup baby, just to let me down_  
 _–let me down–_  
 _And mess me around...”_

I grab him and dance across the hallway. He stumbles after me, laughing while I twirl under his hand.

“ _And then worst of all_  
 _–worst of all–_  
 _You never call, baby, when you say you will_  
 _–say you will–_  
 _But our love is real...”_

“Oliver!”

_“I need you!_   
_–I need you–_   
_More than anyone, darlin'_   
_You know that I have from the sta-art...”_

He twirls under my hand, twirls and twirls and twirls and I keep singing, pulling him close, chests bumping, knees knocking, only letting go to put his hat back on his head. His arms come up around my shoulders and he gasps into my collar as I swing us both in a big, messy circle.

“ _So build me up_  
 _–build me up–_  
 _Buttercup, don't break my hea-art...”_

Finally, I let go to open the cookie-box at the counter.

Carl mumbles something.

“Huh?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Nothing — they really are pink.”

“Here.”

“You should have some, too.”

I snap the cookie in two and hand him the bigger half. I wait for him to almost finish when I ask, “Know _why_ they're pink?”

“No...” He stuffs the last chunk into his mouth. “Whh?”

“Beetroot.”

He stops, mouth full, swallows. “But... they're good.”

I laugh.

“Hey. Enid should be coming over soon,” I say, “I'm cutting her hair.”

We listen to the music for a moment.

“Can I tell you something?” I ask.

Carl looks at me, nodding.

“I just wanted to tell you,” I say.

“Tell me what?”

“Well, yesterday I wasn’t feeling good,” I admit. “And, I was kind of stupid in the night, so I went to Enid’s place.”

“Yeah?”

“We kissed.”

“Oh.”

“I wanted to tell you so it wouldn’t be weird,” I add. “You know? Because we’re all friends.”

“Right... I just thought... I didn’t know you were like that to each other.”

“No, no. We’re not. It’s hard to explain.”

Judith starts crying upstairs.

Carl hesitates, then goes up to change and feed her. I wait a while, feeling heavy, like I’ve done something wrong. When I do go up, it startles me when I see that he’s crying.

“Carl?”

He jumps and wipes his face, turning away. “What, man?”

“What’s wrong?” I ask, feeling stupid.

“Nothing,” he says, “just not feeling well again.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No,” he says, putting Judith down with a bottle. “No... it’s... remembering it... like there isn't ever any one moment I just _do_ and... and I just know that I know and I'm not well!”

“W... What?”

“It’s how you are around me,” he goes on, talking in ways I don’t understand. “And you're just quiet and giving me bigger halves and you're always just _annoying_ and you dance with me and you hold onto me when I can't tell when you're sleeping and you mess with me and... and you're _here,_ all the time. _You._ I'm not well. _I'm not well!_ ”

I try to say I'm sorry, that I didn't mean to hurt anybody, but the words die in my throat.

“Leave... please?”

“Carl—”

“ _Go!_ ”

* * *

 

Later, I arrive at Enid's and get to cutting her hair in the dining room with a pair of kitchen scissors. Bean sits on the couch, watching us or the window. I comb a section of her hair flat down her back, then hand the comb to her in exchange for the kitchen scissors, and cut the small section of her hair through — small flutters of awe still course through my chest every time I watch ten inches of Enid's hair fall to the floor at my feet.

I let out a breath.

Enid too.

“You’re quiet.”

“I’m always quiet.”

“Quieter.”

I don’t say anything.

“I saw your bruises last night,” she says.

I frown, concentrate. “I've decided I don't do that anymore.”

“I don't think it works that way, but you’ve got the right idea, I guess.”

My chest swells in frustration, like some uncomfortable mix of grief and embarrassment. I tried to keep it secret for so long. But Alexandria’s a small community. News travels fast. Noah started sleeping in my room. Rick started kissing my head and squeezing my shoulders. Aaron and Eric started inviting me over for spaghetti. Even Daryl’s too nice sometimes. I get why. I do. It’s just a lot of pressure to know that it’s not just about hurting myself anymore, but hurting other people, too.

Gently, I hold Enid's head still so she doesn’t glance around at me. Keep snipping. At some point, Olivia comes through with her list and asks me what weapons I'll be taking. I say, “Glock, knife, and my machete, please.”

“The one with the red handle?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

She leaves, giving Enid a look as she goes. Enid tells me Olivia thinks boys my age are only after one thing and will get you pregnant if you so much as use their toothbrush. Enid says, “It's a good thing I have my own toothbrush.” I don't say anything because I don't have any opinions about pregnancy and toothbrushes, especially not in any kind of combined subject. I keep cutting away at her hair and hoping it’ll look better once she styles it.

 _Feathering,_ that's what Carol said. _Feathering and—_

“Ouch!”

I startle, dropping the scissors with a _clatter!_.

“My ear!” Enid gasps, clutching it.

“I'm sorry!”

“I'd like to keep both of them, Oliver.”

“Oh God, you're bleeding... like a lot.” I run to the kitchen and grab a flannel from the drawer. Bean chases me. I come back, practically throwing the rag at her. “I'm sorry I'm sorry _I told you I shouldn't do this_!”

“It's fine.”

“It's on your hands.”

“It's _fine._ Just finish it — you know, _without_ turning me into Van Gough's gender-swapped doppelgänger.”

I sigh. “I'm finished anyway.” I hold the towel to her ear while she puts her hair up in a high ponytail. She thanks me. I apologise again and sit next to her chair on the floor, petting Bean.

“Carl’s angry at me.”

“What? Why?”

I hesitate. “I told him about last night.”

“Oh.”

“I... I’m sorry, if I made anything weird.”

“You didn't. Not with me, at least. I just... I probably should have known he would get upset. I... I was selfish not to think about him.”

I get that guilty feeling again. “But we haven’t talked about that stuff since he got shot. We aren’t together. He’s never made any sign that he wants that again.”

She sighs. “Maybe he isn’t sure how.”

I sit there a sulk to myself for a minute, watching her pull the flannel away from her ear. Dried blood pulls at her skin and she hisses through her teeth.

“How is it?” I ask.

“Can you look?”

I squint. “I think it's okay. Stopped bleeding.”

“Is it deep?”

“Can I touch it?”

“It hurts real bad, can't you just look at it?”

“I can't tell how deep it is unless I touch it.”

“What, why — are you blind?”

“ _No..._ Here, put it in the light.”

She walks to the window.

“Well, you still have two ears,” I comment, “just.”

“That's a relief.” She looks herself in the hallway mirror. “It'll leave a scar — you only nicked it.”

I begin sweeping up the cut hair and trashing it. “I thought it was part of your hair.”

“Wait... _are_ you blind?”

I roll my eyes and walk away.

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

I turn to her. “Enid, I'm not blind.”

“How many?”

“Three.”

“Okay...” She steps away until she's on the opposite end of the room. “How many now?”

“Two.”

“No... I'm still holding up three.” I blink, watch her walk towards me, and slowly but surely two fingers turn into three right before me. “Oliver, you're _blind._ ” She gasps. “ _That's_ why you get headaches. That's why you squint in class. Holy shit.”

“Oh no.”

“What?”

“Your hair probably looks _awful_ _!_ ”

“Come on.” She pulls me by the sleeve to the door. “Bean, let's go.”

“Where are we going?”

“Where do you think?” Enid asks. “We're finding Denise.”

“What,” I pull her to stop, “no!”

“Come on.”

“Enid, no, you can't!”

“Why?”

I'm panicking. Carl was right. Something always comes up.

“If you tell anybody they won't let me go today.”

“Well maybe you shouldn't if you're freaking _blind._ ”

“I'm not! I'm not... I can see.”

“Not enough,” she says. “You're just used to seeing _almost_ enough.”

“I've gotten by.”

“Oliver.”

“Just _leave it._ Please? I... I have to do this.”

She's staring.

“It's my mom and dad,” I say. “Please? It's... It's my mom and dad.”

She sighs. Her shoulders drop. She nods.

“Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was Build Me Up Buttercup by The Foundations; thanks, AwkwardlyMeOli.
> 
> Happy reading.


	96. Season 6 ~ Not Tomorrow Yet, Part 3: Heads

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Middle, centred section in Carl’s pov. Rest is Ollie.

Our three vehicles park along a side road, a tall forest on one side and a dead cornfield on the other. The RV in front beeps four times, and Rick climbs out. First things first, before we even get to the Saviour base, we need a walker that looks similar to Gregory, since his head is what the Saviors have asked for; grey hair, in its sixties, white, and preferably bearded.

“Aaron, Rosita. You start here,” he yells. “Peel off every corner mile. Get back here in a couple hours. See what we got.”

“Come on,” Carol says, squinting at the trees, “the horns'll have drawn any stragglers. Let's get started.”

“Can I pee real quick?”

She squints at me, nods. “I'll keep look-out. Not too far.”

I go, taking refuge by an old run-down car a few yards away, turning my back — I overhear Rosita and Carol talking.

“I almost told everyone at the meeting...”

“We're not telling them, Rosita.”

“Morgan stood up in that church and tried to talk us out of this.”

“What's wrong with that?”

“ _Maybe_ because he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. That he should take the _win_ that we didn't kick his ass out for hiding that psychopath.”

“ _Shhh_ _!_ He'll hear you.”

“I can't believe you haven't told him. I can't believe you haven't told anyone.”

“Oliver's got enough on his plate right now.”

“Carol, we've had seven months here, and you've just been...”

“If we told everyone, they'd find out about Denise — you know that.”

“That _hijo de puta_ tried to stand there and act like we didn't know what we were—”

“Morgan doesn't want to kill.”

“ _We_ don't want to kill. We don't like it. It happens.”

I'm spending too much time stood here with my junk out and Glenn asks me if I’m okay as he, Noah and Heath pass by. I shake my head and zip up. Rosita is walking away, muttering. I should tell her, Carol — I should tell her that Noah already told me everything because Noah can't keep secrets from me because he still believes he owes me his life. I should tell her that I won't tell anybody, not if she doesn't want me to. I should tell her that I wish I was there to help her, and that she did the right thing and that so did Morgan, too, and that it was the circumstance that made it all so terrible and not her. Because she did nothing wrong. Because maybe there is no right and wrong and maybe it's only about what you can live with.

But Carol's got a cigarette, and I watch her light it, and for a moment after her drag she glares at it, then throws it to the floor. When she notices me watching her she tells me to hurry up.

* * *

 

Half an hour later, we find a head.

“Matches the description,” Carol says.

“He looks like that actor,” Michonne says. “The one who did the... scissor hands movie. What? It _does_.”

Blood dribbles from the hole in the Gregory-lookalike's throat.

“You want me to do it?” Michonne asks.

“No.” I sheath Lizzie's knife and pull my machete from my hip, line it up, then glance briefly back at her. “Thanks though.”

I sever its head off. Michonne carries it back. The others brought back two more heads to choose from and Rosita gets to trimming their beards — at Jesus and Andy’s advice.

“We're gonna take a look around,” Rick says to everybody. “Try to get a feel for how many people are in there. If we like how it looks, we go in. A couple of hours before dawn. The guards outside'll be tired. Everyone inside'll be sleeping. We don't like what we see, we head back, make a new plan. They don't know who we are. We'll keep Jesus in the shadows... This is how we eat.”

Everyone is watching him, agreeing without having to say so.

“We roll out at midnight.” He leaves, passing me and calling me a “G’boy.” He goes to the heads. Jesus and Andy tell him that Gregory's nose is a different shape to the walker that looked most like him, so Rick begins to beat its nose.

“He fought back,” he says. “He broke your hand, right, Andy?” Actually, Daryl did, when the whole mess with Gregory's failed assassination went down.

“Guess there's no reason to be subtle about it,” Jesus says.

“What?” Rick asks.

“The Saviors — they're scary, but, those pricks got nothin' on you.”

* * *

 

“Come on, Judy, stop crying. We’re getting supper now, see?”

“Carl?”

“Enid. Hey. Just... came to get food from the pantry.”

“Got what you need?”

“Yep.”

“Did you tally it off?”

“Yep.”

“Cool... Do you want to eat here?”

“I guess.”

“Okay. Hot coco?”

“Yeah.”

 “Hey. Remember in the forest?”

“M-hm.”

“You were wrong. I would’ve understood. I didn't just leave my parents to walk. I had to put them down. They were the first walkers I killed, ever, and after... after that it was easy.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me, too.”

“Your hair is shorter.”

“Oliver cut it.”

“I know. He said... He said you kissed. I got upset.”

“Why? It was just kissing.”

“Was it?”

“I... He's my best friend, Carl.”

“He's mine, too.”

* * *

 

By three o'clock in the morning, everybody prepares to go.

“I've never killed somebody,” Noah says.

I look at him. Noah's staring ahead of him at the landscape, sitting on the steps of the RV. The sun will start rising soon. Right now all I can see is a faint orange glow coming through the black, and all the tree trunks cutting through it like some strange knitting pattern.

“Was talking to Glenn and Heath about it,” he goes on, talking so soft and quiet he's more just groaning it. “They haven't had to either. Glenn said... he didn't know what it was gonna feel like but he said it's gonna be bad.”

“It is,” I tell him.

Noah squints at me. “Yeah?”

I nod.

“I'm scared,” he says.

“That’s okay,” I tell him. “You gotta hold onto that. When you stop feeling scared of it — that's what's worse.”

Again, he nods, and he's about to say something else but Heath steps into our view.

“It's time.”

For a few minutes, I say goodbye to them: Heath, Tara and Noah, since they’re leaving for their fortnight medical run right after they’re done at the compound, which means Maggie, Carol and I will miss them.

“Oh,” I remember, “your keychain. Carl—”

“I know,” he says, showing me. It dangles from the handle of his hunting knife, with an engraving that reads:

 _'I don't know if I can make it.._ _.  
Then you won't.'_

And on the other side it reads:

_'This is the beginning...  
You are already making it.'_

And then they're all leaving to make the trade, at an old telecommunications facility. Disused now though. Carol, Maggie and I wait on the east side, keeping lookout — I sit on the RV roof, aware that I can’t see shit. Patrick wore glasses and my father wore contacts and _Nonno_ was blind as a bat. Shitty eyes run in my family.

_Wasn't the under-bite enough?_

If I squint up at the black sky I can make out tiny, blurry dots through my eyelashes. There’s a rustle in the distance. I stare. See nothing.

“Oliver?”

I glance down to Carol.

“Need a coat?”

I'm shivering, so I nod.

“Alright, come down, see which one fits.”

I pick a spare. Aaron's, I think; same one he was wearing when we met him. Maggie smiles at me, and then she's throwing up into the ditch. I hold some of her hair back until she can stop, and Carol is watching us. This happens sometimes. Morning sickness. Even though I know this I'm thinking about her miscarriage months ago. How she was only a few weeks in and it was only a few cells. How she knew it was gone because there was blood when there shouldn't have been. How the baby wasn't a baby and it was gone after some medication and sanitary towels. But this? This baby _is_ a baby now, and we all know that we turn when—

**_Stop it._ **

I think this every time Maggie rushes off to throw up in the toilet. Every time she puts a hand to her stomach and closes her eyes for a moment until the ache subsides. Denise says it's normal, that the baby's just growing, and so the thought will go away until next time.

After a moment, Maggie leans up and wipes her mouth.

“You should sit down for a while,” Carol tells her.

“No, I'm okay. You both sit. I'll take watch.”

“Maggie...”

“Really,” she says, smiling, “I’m fine.”

Carol takes a seat on the RV steps and rests her rifle across her knees.

“See?” I ask her.

“See what?” she asks flatly.

I touch the butt of her rifle. “Carrying a rifle like a purse...”

She snorts. “Sure, Oliver.”

Then an alarm goes off, coming from the compound. We stand up and face it. It's so loud.

Carol starts marching towards it. “They're in trouble. Stay here.”

Maggie follows her across the ditch, the siren sound still blaring through the woods. Gunshots start firing.

“I said stay,” Carol yells.

“No.”

“Damn it, Maggie!”

“I have to.”

“No, you don't. You don't _have_ to!”

“Yes, I do!”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“What am I _supposed_ to do?”

“You're supposed to _be_ someone else!”

Maggie watches her carefully. “They need our help,” she says.

There’s a walker and Carol charges forward and kills it. Carol looks back at us. She looks old, rusting worse, weathered and crumbling away.

“Carol...” I whisper.

“You. Are. Staying. _Here_.”

Something moves. Maggie and I aren't as fast as Carol, because by the time we've swivelled around and pulled out our guns, already Carol has drawn, and already she has shot the lurking Savior through the arm. He collapses, screaming. Maggie scampers for him.

“Dammit, Maggie, let's go!” Carol hisses, snatching my wrist.

“Not until it's done,” Maggie growls, aiming at his face. He stares up at her, his face all twisted up and muddy. Something else moves, only nobody is fast enough.

“STOP!” Guns click and three women come out of nowhere, a gun at our temple for each of us. “Or they're dead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, if you want, check out my other Fear the Walking Dead fic, Quinn.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	97. Season 6 ~ The Same Boat, Part 1: Slaughterhouse

_When I was a child, I heard voices_   
_Some would sing and some would scream_   
_You soon find you have few choices_   
_I learned the voices died with me_

_When I was a child, I’d sit for hours_   
_Staring into open flame_   
_Something in it had a power_   
_Could barely tear my eyes away..._

The first woman is pale and sharp-looking and ginger. “Guns, knives on the ground right now.”

The second woman is old and croaky and toad-like. “Nice jacket.”

The third, young and brunette. “For a murderous bitch.”

“Well, we'll take it off her before we shoot her,” the ginger says.

We give up out weapons. Maggie looks terrified. Carol just shakes her head. In time, the sun comes up through the tree-line. I don't know how long it's been but the morning air is cold and damp. I shiver, teeth chattering. They keep their guns on us, and as the alarm continues to blare, they look through a pair of binoculars at the telecommunications centre from the outside of the fence.

“It ain't on there right,” Donny, the man Carol shot, complains, while the old lady, Molly, ties a coil around his arm. “I can feel it. It ain't stopping.”

“I'm getting it tighter. Jesus, give me a second.”

“Son of a bitch, you're cutting off my circulation.”

“Well, sport, it's _supposed_ to.”

There’s gunfire in the compound.

“Hell was that?” ‘Chelle, the young one asks.

There’s an engine.

“It's Primo,” Paula, Donny’s girlfriend, the ginger, says, peering through the binoculars. “Damn it, they've got him. Give me the walkie.”

“Babe, what's happening?” Donny asks, handing it over.

She holds down the PTT button and says, “Lower your gun, prick... _You,_ with the Colt Python. All of you lower your weapons right now.”

We stand and watch her speak.

 _“Come on out...”_ Rick says. _“Let's talk.”_

“How many've we got?” Molly asks.

“Eight,” Paula answers her, finger off the speaker. “In sight. To many.”

_Eight. That’s not everybody..._

“No, we can take them — we took more,” Donnie says. Paula regards him, then turns back to her binoculars.

“We're not coming out but we will talk,” Paula tells the talkie.

I look at Carol but she shuts her eyes.

“Names,” Paula commands us suddenly. “ _Names_!”

“I'm Maggie, she’s Carol. He’s Oliver.”

“We've got a ‘Carol,’ an ‘Oliver,’ and a ‘Maggie,’,” Paula tells the talkie. “I'm thinking that's something you wanna _chat_ about... Now we're gonna work this out right now. And it's going to go our way.”

The talkie crackles...

 _“We have one'a yours,”_ Rick answers. _“We'll trade.”_

“I'm listening.”

_“First I wanna talk to my people, make sure they're alright.”_

A walker growls nearby and Molly is able to dispatch it. 'Chelle keeps her gun on us.

“I'm gonna put you on,” Paula tells us. “Just say you're fine, I'll know if you try anything else.”

“Rick,” Carol gasps into the talkie. “It's Carol, I—I'm fine but—”

Paula scoffs and pushes her away. “Now you.”

“Rick, it's Maggie. We're okay — we'll figure this out...”

“Shut up,” Paula cuts her off.

'Chelle slashes another walker's face when it stumbles out of the brush.

Paula pushes the talkie to my face. I don’t say anything so she puts her gun to my forehead, then the walkie to hers. “Kid’s not so eager to talk.”

“ _Then I know it’s him,_ ” Rick says.

“Alright,” she says, surprised. “Fine. You have your proof, let’s talk.”

_“Alright, this is the deal, right here. Let them go. You can have your guy back, and live.”_

“Three for one, that's not much of a trade.”

_“You don't have another choice. Or you would'a done somethin' about it already.”_

Paula puts down the binoculars and stares out over the compound.

“We have to get him back,” Donnie pants, clutching his arm; so much blood it looks as though he’s dipped it in a sink.

“Primo can take care of himself.”

“He can patch me up. I need him now, thanks to that _bitch..._ You lost your balls, Paula. You should'a shot her in the head so they could hear her _die._ ”

“If you could just _shut up._ I'll solve this.”

“Either make the deal or we go in.”

“She said _shut up_ so shut it!” Molly snaps at him. “You should be _glad_ she doesn't have a sack o' gonads to trip over!”

 _“I know you're talkin' it over,”_ Rick says. _“It's a fair trade. Just come out, we do this, we all walk away.”_

“Smug prick,” 'Chelle growls. “He must think we're stupid.”

“That's a good thing,” Paula remarks.

“ _Do we have a deal?”_

Another walker snarls in the distance.

“I'll get back to you,” Paula answers.

Suddenly, as Paula kills the third walker, the back of my coat is thrust over my head and everything goes dark.

* * *

 

Leaves crunch under my feet. Our shadows are behind us. We’re leaving the compound. “Move!” Somebody shoves me. I trip. “Turn.” Pulling. “Wait.” Gravel road under us. We’re pushed inside a vehicle. Doors are shut. An engine starts.

I’m gagged with a rag and hear duck-tape ripping. “What am I supposed to do with this thing? It's just a damned _stump!_ ” Molly complains.

“Just tape his hand to the stump.”

“Omega, omega, Saviors down,” Paula is saying. “Go to Gamma, code: fire. Alpha channel is not clear. We follow the protocol. Where the hell are you guys?”

A man's voice comes through. Not Rick. _“Out west of the... Five mi — on — way.”_

Paula sighs. “We're headed to the break point. Switch to Theta channel, same code. If I'm not there, toggle to Alpha, listen in.”

_“Copy that.”_

Sometime later we’re forced out and to a building. I can't see anything from the dark rooms but I hear the doors creak and walkers growl and I smell the rot and mould.

“I hate this damn place,” Molly complains. “ _Safe house._ Ain't nothin' _safe_ about it.”

“This _place_ is gonna save our asses,” Paula retorts. My hood is pulled off just as Paula puts down a walker, telling us to get on the ground. “You. There. You, that wall. You. Over there.”

We sit at three different walls, the walker's corpse in the middle of us. Molly and Donny must be somewhere else because it’s just me, Maggie, Carol, Paula and ‘Chelle in here. Two gas canisters are nearby — 'Chelle takes them out of the room. There’s a high up window; dirty enough that the light is dim and grey. Some odd-looking equipment, above us, along the ceiling, like rails for shower curtains, only this doesn't look like a locker room. The walls are stained red. There’s a sign reading:

_CAUTION  
FRESH ANIMAL CARCASSES_

It’s another slaughterhouse.

“You're wondering if there's a way out of this,” Paula says, voice low and gravelly like she’s groaning. She tapes Carol's legs together. “There isn't. Not unless I say so.” She goes about taping mine and Maggie's legs together too. 'Chelle drags the corpse out of the room — I see shadows shambling through the corridors behind her.

“Paula, I need backup!” she starts shooting them up. “Paula!”

“I want to kill all three of you _right now,_ ” Paula growls, heading to the door to help ‘Chelle. “It's taking _all_ I have not to, so go ahead, I dare you, try something. Just see what happens.”

The door slams, and then it's just the three of us. Gunfire muffles loudly through the building and walkers growl from every corner. I think of our things, hoping one of them still has it all, or that it’s all in the truck. I can feel my hair sticking in clumps over my face. I've lost my beanie; the one Michonne gave me.

Maggie twists around to face the corner of the wall she's by — it sticks out, so she uses the edge to get a good start on cutting at her tape. She nods at me to do the same, but I don’t have a wall like hers. I look around, see a sharp enough fixture next to me.

There are footsteps.

We re-sit ourselves. I catch Carol slip something into her pocket, and then she starts to hyperventilate. I watch, horrified. She's crying, writhing, gagging. Paula and the others burst through the door.

“When's the last time anyone checked this place?”

“It was fine a month ago!”

“Sweetie, that was a month ago. Shit hards quick. The guns've gone bye-bye, The food's gone bye-bye. We got growlers up and down the halls.”

Carol's turning purple, heaving. I try to say her name.

“Means people can get through, too,” Donnie says. “Maybe we should get gone.”

Maggie shouts.

“Yeah? Where the hell to?” 'Chelle ignores her.

“Nowhere,” Paula answers. “Got dead in the halls: Free security. Those assholes get here before our people, the coldbloods will buy us some time — _shut up!_ ”

Carol doesn’t.

“Jesus, it's bleeding — it's not supposed to keep bleeding,” Donnie groans.

“Molly, give me the rope,” Paula orders.

“I'm not losing it.” He looks at my arm and winces. “I'm _not._ ”

“Grind it out.”

“Screw you, 'Chelle!” he cries. “We have to get Primo back. He can fix it. We have to, Paula.”

“ _No_ ,” she orders, tying the rope. “I saw them, you didn't. They took the place down, they got the guns, they'll kill us, too. I'm not going down like that, not after making it this far.”

Both Maggie and I are shouting for their attention now, Carol gone purple.

“What?” Paula growls, yanking out Maggie's gag.

“She's hyperventilating!” Maggie yells. “Somebody needs to take her gag off!”

Carol shudders, tears streaking.

“She's a nervous little bird, ain't she?” Molly says, pulling her gag out.

Carol sucks in a large breath, collapsing in a heap. ‘Chelle aims her gun at her. “Look at you. Bitch, how did you make it this far?”

Molly bends over her. “Honey, you need to take some yoga breaths and calm your ass down.”

Carol paws at her pocket. “Can't,” she gasps. Molly reaches into the pocket and pulls out some rosaries. She hands them over and Carol clutches them to her lips, muttering.

“Oh...” Molly groans. “You're one of _those._ ”

And I realise she’s pretending.

“What are you so afraid of?” Paula asks her.

Carol kisses the beads and shakes her head.

“Are you actually afraid to die?” Paula scoffs. “All this and you're scared of getting your ticket punched?”

“It doesn't matter what happens to me,” Carol murmurs, exhausted with tears rolling down her cheeks. “Just don't hurt them. Don't hurt Oliver, or... the baby.”

For a moment they’re speechless.

“Yeah, right,” 'Chelle growls.

“She got a bun in the oven, she doesn't look it,” Donnie challenges.

“I'm only two months, I think.”

“You're some kind of stupid, getting knocked up at a time like this,” Paula says.

Maggie almost laughs, and when she's asked why, she says, “Was it ever _smart_ to get knocked up? Women used to just die in childbirth. And they always thought the world was gonna end. Living through it, why would you just give up?”

“But _are_ you gonna live through it?” Paula asks, and then she starts talking about how babies are the point, our future, bite-size snacks for the dead. “The point is to stay standing.”

“No,” Maggie says. “Walkers do that. I'm choosing something.”

“That's right. You are. You did.”

Paula leaves the room. Donnie, sitting opposite me, groans as a large swell of blood dribbles down his arm. Molly lights a cigarette she'd taken from Carol's things. I can smell it. It reminds me of the Grady supply closet, and just this summer past, the smoke from Carol’s cigarettes as it drifted in through my window.

Molly starts coughing.

“The children,” Carol says.

Molly just laughs. “Honey, in case you haven't noticed, you've got bigger problems than a little second-hand smoke.”

Carol grimaces. She looks at me and I look away.

Molly takes another drag.

“Molls,” 'Chelle asks.

She tuts, then snubs the cigarette out with her finger. “Y'all are worse than a bunch of evangelical second graders.” She walks away and starts coughing again.

“Those things'll kill you,” Carol says.

“They already have,” Molly says, and shows us the red stain on her handkerchief. “I'm a dead woman walking. Which puts us in exactly the same boat.”

Not long later, Paula comes back and tells us, “The scout crew are coming. Thirty minutes out, maybe less.”

Donnie is going a bad shade of grey. Maggie says he doesn't have that time, that his nerves are dying, that if he doesn't get medical help he could lose more than just his arm. “You should talk to Rick...”

Paula ignores her.

“You did this to me,” Donny tells Carol, and struggles to stand. “You're not gonna make the trade. Just do'm all now.”

“No,” Paula retorts, “we wait for the others. We have to be smart. We need insurance.”

“Then shoot her in the arm, too.”

“No!”

“You really gonna stick up for some gutless bitch over me?”

They start yelling and then he hits her, Paula. Then Maggie is yelling, knocking Donny over with her legs, and then he grabs her she head-buts him and somehow I’m up and throwing myself at him like a one-legged bull, and there isn't anything I could do as he seizes my middle and throws me clean across the floor. I hit the fixture and it cuts a part of my shoulder-blade open. Carol screams, tries to grab him as he comes after me, only the whole world shudders to a standstill when he kicks her off and begins to beat her.

I scream at him, choking through my gag. Then the butt of Paula's gun connects to his temple and Donnie’s knocked out cold. I heave, mortified. Carol isn't moving. I try to shuffle but the duck-tape takes me down, and by the time I get to my knees 'Chelle knocks me over again. I fight her. I throw my head back and catch her against the wall. Then Paula steps over, and punches me through the nose.

* * *

 

I dream that my brain is a factory. A big, rusty, dirty one built to make acorns and beetroot cookies, stocked inside my skull; too many of them — too many cookies and too many acorns. So many my head fills with them. I crack and split and explode, acorns and cookies bursting out of my eyes and nose and mouth and ears. It hurts. Something picks me up. A troll. Bright purple fur and big, green, beady eyes. It tells me it's going to eat all my acorns and cookies and I tell it I don't want it to, that they're mine, but the troll just laughs, and then it drops me into a big black hole.

I come to.

My skull throbs.

I'm too afraid to move.

There's a boy lying in front of me, nose to nose, and his name is Michael Lloyals. There is blood trickling out of his mouth and his eyes are wide and terrified.

 _“Sucks, huh?”_ he gasps, _“being murdered.”_

“I'm not dead,” I tell him, only my mouth doesn't open.

_“Just let it happen, Oliver. Let it take you.”_

“I'm afraid.”

 _“So was I,”_ he says. _“But you killed me anyway.”_

“I'm sorry.”

_“Me, too.”_

When I move my head he goes away, and without moving the rest of me I look around. Maggie and 'Chelle aren't here, and Donnie’s lying motionless beside me. Breathing, barely. I try opening my mouth. My cheek is swollen. Carol's staring at me, asking if I'm okay, and without answering I say _no,_ I say, _I want to die,_ I say, _you just got beaten and there was nothing I could do about it._

Molly is tending to the cut on Paula’s cheek.

“Excuse me?” Carol says.

Paula sighs.

“Oliver's awake,” Carol adds. “Could you help him up, please?”

Paula nods. Molly stomps towards me. She props me against the wall. I grunt, and feel the painful cut on my shoulder. I try to ask for Maggie.

“Look who found his voice,” Molly says, “you’re gonna have to speak up...”

“Maggie...”

“She's gone for questioning with 'Chelle,” Molly says. She smells of body odour and nicotine. “No sense worryin' 'bout her.”

“Thank you,” Carol says. “And, thank you for helping Maggie — for helping me. My husband, Ed, he used to—”

“Yeah!? I don't care if your old man used to ring your bell,” Paula interrupts. “I see exactly who you are, Carol. I know. You're pathetic. You wanna think we're just the same? Go ahead. You're wrong.”

Carol looks at Donnie.

“He's just a warm body for my bed,” Paula remarks. “That's it. I could kill him in his sleep.”

Carol rubs her Rosary between her hands, praying.

“Do you really believe in that crap?”

“My faith got me through the death of my daughter,” Carol says.

“Hmm. Well, the good news is maybe you'll see her again soon.”

I watch the floor, thinking Paula doesn’t know who Carol is, and even worse, thinking I don’t know who Carol is either.

“Kid.”

It's Paula.

I don't look at her.

“You don't seem like a bible-thumper, like your mom.”

I shake my head. “She’s... not...”

Paula squares up to me. “Huh?”

Shake my head again.

“What _do_ you believe in?” she asks me.

I look at her. I tell her, “I think you’re just as stupid as the rest of us, and I think it’s going to get us all killed,” except I don’t say anything and I just keep staring at her.

“Creepy little bastard, ain't ya?” Molly grumbles from the side, rolling her shoulders. “Hell. Whatever's wrong with him, I hope it ain't contagious—”

 _“Have you thought about it?”_ Rick's voice, suddenly, cracking static. _“Talk to me.”_

Walkers growl in the hallways like ghosts.

“You _weren't_ listening,” Paula reprimands through the talkie. “I said I'd contact you.”

Static. _“Would it make a difference if I said I was sorry about that?”_

“What do you think?”

_“I think we're gonna make the trade, so tell me where.”_

“We haven't agreed to that.”

_“You will.”_

“You know what? I'm not so sure. We'd be taking most of the risk, not getting much in the way of a reward.”

The static makes me itch.

_“The other option won't work out for you.”_

Paula paces, then says, “We'll take our chances.”

She takes her finger off the speaker and starts pacing.

Carol sighs. “You don't have to do this. You don't have to fight.”

“Your people killed all of my people.” Molly growls. “Of course we gotta fight.”

“We didn't want to.”

“But you did,” Paula says, “so tell me why.”

“Your people ambushed my people on the road, tried to take everything we had.” Carol starts crying again. “They were gonna kill them.”

“Well, damn,” Molly groans. “So now we know what happened to T's group.”

“Wait, that was seven months ago,” Paula says sceptically.

“Those idiots,” Molly says. “Probably put on a big show.”

“Okay, fair play,” Paula relents. “You were just defending yourselves. But, see, your people killed them on the road, right? Blew them to pieces. All that time ago and we never found you... so, why not stop?”

Carol looks away, forgetting about that loop-hole.

“Negan,” I murmur, the strange word leaving me like an animal in hiding. “Said they were... working for someone called Negan. We — We knew we were on borrowed time before you'd find us.”

Paula turns to me.

Carol watches.

“And what do you think you know about Negan?” Paula asks.

 _Everyone was afraid,_ I should say. _Negan was a bogeyman._

“He sounded like a maniac,” Carol sobs. “We were scared! We had to stop him.”

“Sweetie, sweetie,” Molly says. “We are all Negan.”

“What do you mean?” Carol asks.

Molly is coughing again, spluttering crimson into her handkerchief. Walkers wrack against the doors, shrieking into the glass. Carol looks at me, and for the first time since we got here I know exactly what she's feeling, right in this moment.

She's afraid.

_All you have is your fire_   
_And the place you need to reach_   
_Don’t you ever tame your demons_   
_But always keep them on a leash..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was Arsonist's Lullaby by Hozier.
> 
> Happy reading.


	98. Season 6 ~ The Same Boat, Part 2: Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out "lord-of-fandoes-and-other-things'" fanart of Oliver on Tumblr. So great. Thanks.

“Can I have one?”

Molly lights another cigarette and snickers. “Well, look at you, little bird. I didn't think you _approved._ ”

“I don't.”

Molly lights one for her.

“You _are_ weak,” Paula says. “What are you so afraid of? So scared you can't even stick to your own principles.”

Pinching the cigarette between her lips, Carol whispers, “You don't want me to stick to my own principles.”

I need my inhaler, and when I start coughing I can't stop. Molly tells me to shut up, even though she's coughing herself. Carol snubs out her cigarette. I glare at the floor, wheezing.

“Asthmatic, right?” Paula asks. “I saw some in your pack.” She looks at Carol and smirks. “Shameless, little bird...”

Carol eyes are wet.

Paula smiles.

“I was a Secretary, before,” she says. “I fetched coffee for my boss and made him feel good about himself. I spent most of my days reading stupid inspirational e-mails to try and feel good about myself. There was this one that kept going around: A young woman was having a hard time and told her mom she wanted to give up, so her mom went to the kitchen and started boiling three pots of water. She put a carrot in one, an egg in another, and ground coffee beans in the last one. After they'd boiled a while, her mom said:

'Look, all three things went through the same boiling water.

The carrot went in strong and came out soft,  
the egg was fragile, and came out hard,  
but the coffee beans changed, the water, itself.'

...you're supposed to want to be the coffee beans.”

Carol doesn’t say anything, so Paula keeps talking.

“See, to me, coffee was just a thing that my boss would drink up. No matter how many times I refilled his damn cup, it was just never enough. I was at work when the army took over D.C. We weren't allowed to leave. They had to evacuate all the important people first — members of Congress, government employees. So I was stuck with my boss. Not my family; my husband, my _four_ girls...”

She turns away, then turns back.

“My boss was weak and stupid and he was going to die and he was going to take me down, too. He was the first person I killed, so that I could live. I stopped counting when I hit double digits. That's right around the time I stopped feeling bad about it.”

Molly flicks her ash at me. It hits my shoulder.

“I am not like you, little bird,” Paula adds. “I'm still me, but better. I lost everything and it made me stronger.”

“You sure about that?” Carol asks, puffing on her cigarette.

“I'm alive,” Paula retorts.

“With those people, those killers?”

“Your people are killers, Carol. That makes you a killer.”

Carol is crying again, the silent kind. “You... You're the one...”

“Excuse me?”

“You're the one who's afraid to die,” Carol says. “And you're going to. You _will_ die. It's what's gonna happen if you don't work this out.”

“Are _you_ going to kill me?” Paula challenges.

“I hope not...”

* * *

 

“Asshole, you there?” Paula asks.

 _“I'm here,”_ Rick replies.

“We've thought about it. We want to make the trade.”

_“That's good.”_

“There's a large field with a sign that says _'God is dead'_ about two miles down I-sixty-six. Good visibility in all directions.”

_“We'll meet you there.”_

“Ten minutes?”

_“Ten minutes.”_

Paula pockets the talkie and begins pacing again, shaking her head. “Mm-m. Now, that was too easy.”

“Maybe they're just itching to get their people back,” Molly says.

“No, there was no static,” Paula replies, pulling her hair. “There should've been static. They're close. They're probably already here.”

Carol looks at me.

“We were careful, but there were tracks,” Paula goes on. “There had to be.”

“No,” Carol whispers.

“They killed everybody back home. They have the weapons. They know what they're doing. They're probably waiting to kill us as soon as we walk out those doors. That's what we'd do.”

“—no...”

“Carol,” I whisper.

Molly kicks me.

“ _Ack_!”

“Boy, shut up. Gittin' on ma nerves.”

“You have to listen to me, please?” Carol begs, crying again. “Rick is a man of his word. He wouldn't put his people at risk — to attack.”

“Then he's just as stupid as you are.”

Carol goes quiet.

Paula switches frequency. “What's your ETA?”

 _“A few minutes away,”_ a man says, _“but the car's running on fumes.”_

“We have gas,” Paula reassures him. “We'll fill you up and then we move. Radio when you're back in the perimeter.”

_“Copy that.”_

Molly flicks another cigarette butt at me and the embers sting my neck. On reflex, I curse and spit at her. I’ve never spit at anybody before. And then she hits me.

“Spit on me!?”

“ _Argh_! Get _uffuh_ me _h_!”

“How dare you!” She slaps me across the head again and again until I’m curled up on the floor covering my face.

“Stop, please?!” Carol begs. “He's just a child!”

 “Molls!” Paula growls.

Grudgingly, Molly lets up. “Thin ice,” she warns, “I swear to _God_!”

“Old troll,” I whisper.

Molly stands there, still, and then she swings around and grabs me, holds my head still, and squeezes my jaw so that I have to open my mouth. Ash hits my tongue and I gag.

“Damn you!”

And the cigarette is in my mouth, pushed shut with a hand against my chin. My lips and tongue burn and sizzle and I scream and choke and twist in her grip, helpless. Carol is crying, screaming. Paula tears Molly off by her hair.

“ _Molls_! For crying out loud!”

Molly shrieks. I splutter out the cigarette, wheezing and coughing and throwing up — bile stings the sores and my throat is on fire.

“You kill him you kill us all.”

Molly growls like a pissed off Rottweiler. “Got no cigarettes left.”

“Deal with it!” Paula yells.

“God, I _hate_ kids! Should'a shot him through the skull first off.”

“Shut _up_! I'm thinking.”

Molly spits on me. I flinch and wipe my cheek on my shoulder, ash and yack sticking. My jaw hurts. Makes me cry like a child. Carol stares. I look away, sobbing.

“We gotta get ready,” Paula says. “Pull 'Chelle out so she doesn't get stuck in a fight. We have to be ready to move at any second.”

“What about the girl?” Molly asks.

“Leave her for now,” Paula answers. “If we leave, we travel light. And if the pricks are here, we pick them off at the door.”

She leaves the room and takes out both walkers waiting outside. Molly glares at me.

“Molls, we need this hall clear.”

The door slams and they're gone, footsteps fading. Tears roll down my cheeks.

Carol takes a deep, long breath.

“The fixture,” she says sternly, “keep cutting. I'll use the rosary.”

I stare at her, shaking.

“ _Now._ ”

I get to it. She gets to sharpening the cross against the cement. After long my arms are free, and I use my teeth to tear the tape off of my hand, ignoring the welts and sores and bruises. I leave the tape on my amp when I realise I'll waste time on nothing, instead I start on my ankles, finding the end and unwrapping it as quickly as I can. Carol has cut her hands free. I crawl over and use the rosary cross to cut her feet free, too.

“Oliver.”

“ _What_?”

I look at her. She's lost an earring.

“ _Get_ up,” I say. “We need to find Maggie.”

I feel her eyes but I don't meet them. At the door, we listen, then leave with our backs to the walls, stepping around corpses and creeping down hallways. It's dark. Like it was in Terminus. Only here it's mouldy and unclean and deserted, and everything feels very far away.

Maggie isn't in the kill floor, or the pelt room.

Someone’s coming. Carol pulls me behind a corner by the hem of my coat. Molly fights off more walkers, putting down one and telling the other, “Just a sec, sugar,” as she bends over and coughs. She puts it down.

The growling stops and Carol tugs my sleeve, and then we're moving the other way, trying another hallway. All the rooms are empty until we get to the machine room. We hear a strange, sawing noise from inside, then go in and see Maggie cutting her binds with a saw on the wall.

I keep watch while Carol helps her free.

“Are you okay?” Maggie asks, hugging her.

“Have to be,” Carol replies, breathless.

Then Maggie rushes up and hugs me.

“Y'alright, sweetie?” she asks into my hair. She tugs down my collar to see the cut on my shoulder-blade. “Need to get you patched up. Paula bruised your cheek but she didn't break skin. God, look at you, oh, Jesus, what did she do to you, your lips're bleeding.”

“I'm okay,” I say.

Maggie hugs me again.

“They've spread out, but I think we can make it past them,” Carol whispers. “We have to try.”

“We can't leave them alive,” Maggie says.

“No, we should just go.”

“Carol, we have to finish this. We have to.”

We head back to the slaughter room. Donnie’s still in here. Maggie unties the rope around his arm and blood leaks out of him.

“He’s already dead,” Maggie says, her finger pressed to his wrist.

“Careful,” I whisper. “He's turning.”

“We should go,” Carol murmurs.

“We need a gun,” Maggie replies. “Gimmie that.”

Carol hands over the rope and Maggie fastens it around his belt, then ties the other end to the fixture I'd been sat by. His empty shell opens its eyes and sits up, and Carol pulls me back. We leave and hide inside an empty supply closet next door that I'd seen Molly clear before. Just in time, because she comes back to check on us. There is a snarl. Then a scream. And then a thud when a body goes down.

“Where are ya, _Magnolia_?!” Molly roars. He bit her arm. I know this because we’re stepping into the room. “I wanna bloody up that nice—”

Maggie grabs her, stealing her gun and shoving it into her forehead with a heavy _crack._ Molly hits the floor, and then Maggie is beating her, until there's nothing left of her face but a caved in hole.

“Let's go,” Carol whispers.

We shut the door, rushing to the exit with a gun and a knife between the three of us that Maggie and Carol take. As the corridor begins to darkn, I wonder if we’re going the wrong way. There's a dead end — walkers impaled on spikes but we could get through if we’re careful.

“They're using them to keep us in, keep the others out,” Carol tells us.

“Come on,” Maggie “We have to find 'em.”

Maggie kills the closest walker and then a rain of bullets shatter up around us. We dive into cover. Paula runs out of ammo quickly and as she emerges around the corner, Carol aims at her. Maggie grips the back of my coat. A walker shrieks down my neck, trapped.

Paula steps closer.

“Just run,” Carol tells her.

“Shoot her,” Maggie mutters.

“Go on, do it,” Paula snarls, voice shaking. “You've killed Donnie, you've killed Molly. Your people have destroyed my home.”

“Get outta here...”

“Carol,” Maggie hisses.

“You have _no_ idea,” Paula says. “The things I've done, what I've given up, what I had to do.”

“Just _run..._ ”

“Carol, shoot her!” Maggie again.

“Go ahead. I've already lost everything.”

A walker comes free and falls towards then. There's grunting and then a gunshot. Paula writhes on the floor, a gunshot in her shoulder.

“Paula?”

It's 'Chelle.

“Paula? Molly?”

Maggie runs at her and 'Chelle's gun flings across the room.

“You lying bitch!” ‘Chelle screams, pulling out a knife.

She slices Maggie's stomach.

Then ‘Chelle’s brain explodes.

I lower my gun, out of breath. I stagger across the hallway and grab Maggie.

“I'm okay,” she gasps, pulling her sliced shirt up. “She didn’t get me.”

Carol tells me to keep 'Chelle's weapons, her blood on my fingers and face. We look at our way out, the walker hallway, and Paula is staggering towards us. She’s laughing. Bleeding.

“I'll do it,” Carol rasps.

“You're good,” Paula groans. “ _Nervous little bird._ You were her. But not now, right? Me, too.”

“I told you to run.”

Paula gasps in pain. “If you could do all this, what were you so afraid of?”

“I was afraid of this...”

Paula laughs, leaning on the wall as not to collapse. Then she lunges. The gun is flung from Carol's hand, but Carol is stronger, and pins Paula against the wall. She screams, spins around, and staggers back against an iron rod — it erupts through her stomach, and she screams again, and then we watch her get eaten alive.

_“Paula, we're approaching the perimeter. Are we a go? Do you copy?”_

No static. Paula’s still screaming. When she’s dead, Carol pulls out her walkie-talkie, trembling.

She clicks the receiver, and mimicking Paula’s voice, says, “Meet us... on the kill floor.”

* * *

 

A few moments later we're hiding in the Machine Room next door to the Kill Floor with the empty gas canisters in front of us.

“Oliver,” Carol whispers.

I ignore her.

“I should never have brought you out here. It was a mistake — stupid,” she says. “ _I_ was stupid... I just... I spend _so_ much time trying not to think about... what's happened. But here you are, always, letting it eat you up.”

I wipe my eyes.

“I wanted to do this for you — let you go home,” Carol says. “I wanted to let you have that. Just that, finally... but I've just let what happened happen to us all over again.”

She sighs.

“I think I might've killed eighteen people. Nineteen. I should've killed Donnie, too, in the woods. I had a clear shot. None of this would've happened if I had just killed him—”

“Don't think about it,” Maggie says.

“I can't _stop_.”

“We're almost done,” Maggie says.

Then comes the footsteps. Our door’s open enough to see through and several figures rush past and onto the kill floor.

“Careful,” one says.

Inside my pocket is the lighter Molly threw at me.

“The floor's slick,” another.

I hand it to Carol and she lights a cigarette between her teeth.

“You sure this is it?”

“She said kill floor.”

“Hey, this one's locked.”

We rush out, pulling the heavy, rusty, sliding, kill floor door closed as Carol throws in her cigarette. The fire sweeps into the room and they scream and pound on the door. The heat inside forces us to step back. I smell it, burning flesh. See the smoke as it bleeds under the door and swirls past our ankles.

Carol was right, all the way back in Grady.

_The smoke follows us. It will forever..._

We leave the slaughterhouse. Outside, people are speaking and as the door swings open, we bring up our guns and lower them again.

“Maggie,” Glenn murmurs, and holds her.

And Gabriel says something. Rosita’s walking past with a rifle up.

Daryl touches Carol’s chin.

“You okay? We got your trail. You start a fire?”

“Yeah...”

“Hey, you good?”

“No.”

Abraham has a gun to Primo's temple.

“They're dead,” Maggie’s sobbing. “They're all dead, the ones that took us. They're all dead.”

“Hey, are you okay?”

“I just... I can't, anymore.”

Rick is holding me.

“Oliver...” Muttering it into the shell of my ear. “Oliver, it's okay now.”

He holds me until I let go of him, rubbing a thumb over my hair.

“Oliver... Oliver, look at me.”

I am but not at his face. I step back. Rick meets Abraham and Primo.

“Your friends are dead. No one's coming for you. So you might as well talk.”

“Let'm burn,” Daryl growls.

Gabriel takes my shoulder, and pulls me the last few steps outside of the slaughterhouse. The sun blinds me. Everything does. The cement. The trees. The air and the birds and the earth. Like I'm some monster burning under it all.

Fire crackles behind us from inside.

“I'm gonna ask you one last time, how'd you get the bike?” Rick asks Primo.

“We found it.”

“Like hell you did,” Daryl hisses.

“We found it.”

“Was Negan in that building last night or was he here?” Rick yells.

“Both... I'm Negan, _shithead._ ”

_This is a game to them._

“There's a whole world of fun that we can talk about,” he goes on, “so let's have a ch—”

“I'm sorry it had to come to this.”

And then Primo dies.

* * *

 

On the journey back someone hands me my things. Michonne eases the tape off of my amputation and tends to the cut on my shoulder-blade, and at some point Carol has taken my hand again, and it's bloody, her hand, with a deep cut across her palm.

“I'm sorry,” she breathes. “I'm so sorry, Oliver.”

Later, inside my room, I hurt myself until I don't feel like me anymore. There’s talking downstairs at some point. Then someone is coming upstairs and there’s a knock on my door. Carl enters. I’m curled up under my sheets. I hear him put something, a bowl by the sound, on my bedside. He sits on the end of my bed.

“You alright?”

“It's okay if you're not.”

“I – I mean, we don't have to talk.”

“I can just sit here, read... or listen to music.”

He stops talking because I’m not reply. I can smell the fire, even now, feel its heat, taste its smoke, hear the crackles and the sizzles and the screams.

“Oliver?” His voice is so small. “Oliver, talk to me.”

I do not.

“I'm sorry,” he whispers.

And then he is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Donny. Donnie. I’m flawed, okay?
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	99. Season 6 ~ Twice as Far, Part 1: Imprehensive

The days since the slaughterhouse have blurred into routine. I sit in my room or I do chores or I go into the forest with Enid, where we read and we talk and sometimes we don’t talk and we just kiss instead. And yesterday, while we were kissing, she let me touch her, and then she let me have sex with her, and when it was over I started to cry and she let me do that, too.

We decided not to do that again.

“Sometimes, hurting just... hurts,” she said. “It doesn't make you learn anything. It doesn't make you a better person, or... develop character or anything like that. It just... hurts.”

This morning, I hurt myself until Carol comes back from Tobin’s. She makes home-baked banana bread with Hilltop butter for breakfast, but I don’t eat any. I just sit at the table, watching the plate. Carol doesn’t eat either.

She inhales.

“The panic attack, the praying.” She hides her lips inside her mouth and shakes her head. “It wasn't real. I... I don't think.”

I don’t look at her.

“But I _was_ afraid,” she tells me. “I needed to keep you and Maggie alive. That's all that mattered...” She grimaces and wipes her face. “That was real. It was.”

She spends a while watching her plate and wiping her eyes dry.

“I made you a promise,” she says finally. “I talked to Rick. We're going to Lorton. You and me. Today.”

I look at her.

“Go to Denise’s for PT first. You haven’t gone since getting back. I’ll get everything ready.”

We don’t do PT today because Denise is busy packing her things. Her hair is up in a pony tail and there's a small smudge on the corner of her glasses. She must be able to tell something’s up, or maybe she just guesses, but either way she talks to me about how people cope in a lot of different ways. “They prey or they talk or they find a way to laugh at themselves,” she says. “They write or they cook or they paint or they exercise, and sometimes they take it out on themselves; smoke or drink or eat too much at once or not enough. I know how you cope, and I don’t condone it, but I’m not going to condemn you for it either.”

It’s hard to look at her face but I nod so she knows I understand.

“One day you might stop,” she says, “But until then, the most important thing you need to know is that you still have people who love you. You know that, don't you?”

She steps over to the bookshelf and pulls down a paper-back, then hands it to me, scrunching her nose and eyes _Denisely_.

“Here,” she says, pinching her glasses and running her hand over her pony-tail. “Want you to read this. It's your homework.”

_Nancy’s Saint Clare_

“It's good. Promise.”

“Why?”

“Why is it good?”

“Why do you want me to read it?”

“You like to read. I like this book. It’s something to talk about.”

I try not to find this funny and instead ask, “Why are you packing?”

“Well, I’m hoping to go on a run with Daryl and Rosita today. I've never been on a run before.” She sighs. “But I think I'm ready. I _know_ I am.”

“I’m going on a run, too,” I tell her.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Carol’s taking me to put my parents down.”

She looks at me, speechless, and then someone’s approaching the infirmary outside.

“—I was thinkin' of making my beef jerky stroganoff,” Spenser says.

“I'm good, thanks,” Rosita says. “ _What_?”

“What are we doing, Rosita? Just tell me. It's good, either way. Really is.”

“ _Okay..._ ”

“‘Okay’ is what we're doing?”

“We'll do dinner, _okay_?”

“Alright. See you then.”

“Okay...”

Denise opens the door and they both turn to us.

“We didn't hear you guys,” Denise lies, holding a torn-out page from a road map.

“Good,” Rosita says. “Today's lesson'll be in the cul-de-sac.”

Every other day, Rosita teaches weapons defence classes.

“Actually,” Denise asks, “can we do something else?”

* * *

 

As well as Denise going on a run with Daryl and Rosita to check out an apothecary, and me going on a run home with Carol, Abraham and Eugene are going out to check some warehouse west of Alexandria. Something about making our own bullets. We leave at the same time. I’m driving in Aaron and Eric’s car, which is astoundingly ugly, with Carol in passenger smoking out the window. Daryl, Rosita and Denise are in the truck ahead, and Abraham and Eugene turn off after long to head for the warehouse.

I find that with every mile closer in the astoundingly ugly car, the more and more apprehensive I become — not exactly apprehensive; impatient really, but that isn't right either. _Imprehensive?_ Yeah, imprehensive.

“You’re speeding,” Carol comments. “You drive like Glenn.”

I check a road sign as we pass it. Can’t read it. Can just see the rain droplets on the outside of the windscreen. “I’m matching Daryl,” I say.

“So?” she asks. “We’re not going the same way. They’re splitting off once we get to Interstate ninety-five.”

Relenting, I slow the car, changing gear which is easy enough with one hand — the tail-end of Daryl’s rattling truck disappears around a bend, but after several minutes’ driving, not far from Interstate ninety-five and just outside of Springfield, when we see them again, parked before a big fallen tree blocking the road.

Carol curses.

I park, then get out with Carol. The tree fell before a crossroad, train tracks ahead and a few houses in the distance, and tall, grassy banks either side of the road, so we can’t drive around.

“Stay put,” Carol tells me, “I’m gonna look around with Daryl and Rosita.”  

I get in Daryl’s truck. Denise, sitting in the middle seat, startles as I shut the door and sit next to her. She’s holding her heart — the thing with being quiet is that you sneak up on people a lot, I realise. Especially jittery people like Denise.

“Sorry...”

She laughs.

We watch Rosita dispatch a walker trapped under the tree — it looks like it rotted out, so at least it likely didn't fall from people trying to set an ambush.

“Enid told me about your eyes,” Denise says suddenly, bobbing her head as she talks. “Forgot to bring it up before — Don't worry, I won't say anything... Patient confidentiality.”

I sigh.

“That sign over there,” she points. “Can you read what it says?”

“Railroad crossing. Stop, look, listen.”

“Did you read that or did you just know it said that already?”

I look at her and cock an eyebrow.

“Alright. Alright.” She smiles, then sighs. “Good luck, by the way. You deserve this. While your there, try to pick up some glasses from somewhere. Did your parents wear any? Your brother?”

I nod.

“Good.”

Suddenly, Rosita opens the truck door.

Denise only startles a little this time.

“Come on,” Rosita says, “it's clear.”

“What did you find?” Denise asks.

“Bottles of booze. Any takers?”

“No thanks,” Denise says. “They were kind of my parents' thing, which is why they aren't mine.”

Daryl needs to grab his things so I get out.

“That truck ain't gonna make it past this tree,” he says. “Carol, what're you gonna do?”

“I mean...” She looks at me. “We’re already half way there. What, two hour walk? Two there, give us enough time to bury them? Two hours back here?”

She walks past and leans into the car, grabbing out our things. Then she comes back and walks right past me.

“Come on!” she calls. “We're burning daylight.”

“Y'sure?” Daryl asks her.

Carol doesn’t stop, and after an apprehensive glance at the others, I jog after her along the train tracks.

* * *

 

Imprehensive slowly churns over to full blown anxiety when the first hour rolls over into the second. Beside the tracks, we can see the long, clogged interstate — empty of shambling bodies but filled with still ones and abandoned cars. Walking keeps our shirts damp and turns our faces a shade darker, and soon we’ve followed the tracks right into Lorton. I take Carol along footpaths and back alleys to avoid open streets, finally turning into a suburb. _My_ suburb. Empty and barren and deserted. Not even walkers have stuck around. We go past the play park. Carol asks which way and I point to the street I grew up on. We stand at the foot of a small overgrown lawn. Ravens caw from the rooftops above and a completely new feeling comes over me; it turns the breath in my throat to snow, my heartbeat to sludge, my stomach to pulp, and I only have one name for it...

Home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	100. Season 6 ~ Twice as Far, Part 2: Mom and Dad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> !100th!  
> !Chapter!  
> !Special!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N = Stolen is a great book and I'm very inspired so this whole chapter will be in second person past tense from Carol's point of view.
> 
> P.s. Alright, I'm not going to lie, when I wrote this I drank a LOT of caffeine that day; lattes, cappuccinos, mochas, flat whites (I work in a coffee shop and I don't usually drink caffeine so this turned me into another species o.O) and I was up ALL NIGHT compulsively changing the whole thing into Carol's POV. I did not sleep. I may or may not have fallen asleep the next day on shift cleaning a table leg. And I regret nothing. This chapter consumed me. And I love it unwholesomely.

_Momma, I know_   
_That you’re tired of being alone_   
_Dad, I know you’re trying_   
_To fight when you feel like flying_

_But if you love me  
Don’t let go_

_Hold_   
_Hold on_   
_Hold on to me_   
_‘Cause I’m a little unsteady_   
_A little unsteady..._

* * *

**~The letter Carol Never Sent~**

* * *

 

Oliver.

Your pain is your bravery and your regret is your innocence. You travel with the world balanced on the top of your head and it is nothing less than a halo. But all you see are horns.

“Take your time,” I whispered to you, “please.”

You walked across the lawn. When you stopped at the front door it was like you were standing before a portal. Another dimension. A parallel universe exactly like our own, only this was home to you.

The house was small and comfortable, with boarded windows and weeds growing along the cracks in the door and walls, and an empty parking space outside. Overhead, flower pots hung in the breeze, rotted Forget Me Nots melted over the edges.

This was the kind of home I could see you growing up happily in.

I wish you had.

The other colonial houses remained silent. You crouched and under the welcome mat, buried in the dust, was a small rusty key and you picked it out. You unlocked the door and again I said, “Take your time...”

You did.

In the hallway, I shut the front door behind us. It must have been exactly how you had left it; messy and lived by two boys without their parents. The bureau drew your attention first. On it was an old newspaper, a small Newton's cradle, a jar filled with coins and used train and bus tickets and some marbles, and a framed photograph of you and your brother. You were propped in his arms with a large, wrinkly hand on the arm of the couch. Two of Patrick's front teeth were missing and you were so small, fast asleep, with a hospital tag around your wrist.

_de luca, oliver... 09-30-1996  
21.4inches....... 6pounds_

You looked at the same wrist, now, and found it funny that it wasn’t there anymore.

We went into the living room. You seemed so nervous. Even in your own home. As if you were more out of place than ever. That broke my heart. I drew my knife and led us into the dining room, then the kitchen; wood counters, a fridge, stove, washing machine, and weeks’ worth of empty cans and whatever else you put to waste stacked inside the sink. There were two doors. One lead to the garden — I knew this because I could see sunlight coming in through the colourful stained-glass window in it.

The second door was closed.

“What's behind it?” I asked, and with a tough crack, you pulled it open. “Oh,” I said. “Just the staircase.”

We stood shoulder to shoulder, staring up. There was a window at the top of the staircase and the sun glowed orange through the brown curtain. Along the walls either side of the staircase were more family photos. Newer and older. An interfaith wedding. A birthday party. A trip to the amusement park. A vacation to Italy. You and Patrick have your father's face, except your eyes, Oliver. Your eyes are all your mother. Rosa was her name, wasn't it? I don't know if you ever told me your father's.

Suddenly, a raven cawed. It sounded like it came from inside.

“I can go up, check if they're still there.”

The air smelled of dust and death.

“They’re there,” you said.

We went up and you went straight to your parent's room, waiting outside with your ear pressed to the door. The raven cawed again.

“I'm gonna check the other rooms,” I said, “just to be sure.”

I checked a bedroom. Patrick’s? Then the office. A closet. Another bathroom. Yours, definitely. So many books. Then I turned to you. The raven inside cawed again. I pressed my ear to the door with you.

You were trembling.

“I can't hear them. Just the bird,” I whispered.

You didn’t speak so I listened harder, and heard something small and shrill. Another caw.

“I'll let them out one at a time,” I whispered. “You'll put them down.”

You gripped your knife tightly.

I looked around. “Hallway looks wide enough. I'll let whoever comes out first come my way. Then you come up from behind and put them down.”

You nodded.

“One at a time.”

Again, a nod.

“On three. One. Two. Three.”

I pushed the door and caught sight of a large black wing swinging across the room. As it left through the broken window, we heard nothing else move. You looked at me desperately. I pushed again. And again until the door was open wide.

With all the planning and the waiting and the pining for this day, this moment, there was always one thing you and I both had forgotten to consider. It had been more than two years since they died in this house. Over time, as they slowed and starved, maggots and insects and birds had eaten away at their flesh until almost nothing was left. Your mother, lying on the floor, was missing most of her face and your father, slouched against the wall, had lost all his fingers and toes.

Their eyes were gone but they still turned their heads to look at us, teeth snapping weakly. You just watched.

It’s strange, how disconnection works — the forced rift or isolation from something you once knew and loved. I've felt it. I _feel_ it. Every day. It began with Ed, and then when it was Sophia, too, I had to experienc it in a setting I no longer knew, surrounded by people who didn't understand how to fix me.

That was you.

Thrown into a reality without the rest of you.

You were inside your town, your _home,_ a place you understood and belonged, to _find_ the people who understood how to fix you, and they were gone.

I touched your hand.

It was all I had for you.

Again, I whispered, “Take your time...”

You knelt beside your father, and with a dry _squelch!_ his corpse was dead. I gasped and caught his forehead before you let it hit the carpet, and while I laid him down for you, you were already moving across the room to your mother.

“W — wait,” I stammered.

Rosa's body shrieked at you.

“Stop!” I begged.

You did, your face all twisted and sobbing.

Out of breath, I said, “Please...”

Her mouth was wide, her warm smile now gone, replaced by a rotten shell. She was not your mother and you knew that and I thought that that was something awful for a son to know, awful for a mother to see.

Am I, still?

Can I still call myself that?

Then you put your mother down. You laid her down gently, then sat back and for a long time everything was very still, and I think... for the first time in your life the stillness was a relief. I could see it in you. You could see everything you’d lost and everything you still had and it was like some strange safeness wrapping itself around you. You turned to me and you let me hold you. I hoped I could be like that safeness, wrapping around you.

For so long, and with so much effort, you hadn't willingly allowed yourself to feel it all, and I don't just mean the safeness or the stillness, but everything else, too.

No matter how hard you ever love anybody, you will miss them even harder.

But I stop thinking about it.

Thinking about it makes what I have to do so much harder.

Finally, you stopped crying.

“Carol...”

I looked at you. I couldn’t see your face because you were staring at your mother. You startled and pushed yourself away from her.

“Something...”

I watched her, too. And you were right. Something squirmed... inside her.

“Oh, God,” I whispered.

You froze. “It’s a rat.”

“No,” I said. “It’s not.” I leaned closer. “I think she was pregnant.”

You threw up.

“She can't have been too far along, two or three months, maybe.” I knelt and pulled up her tattered, moth-bitten shirt. “She might not've told you yet.”

“It’s a walker...”

“It's okay,” I reassured you, “I... I’ve done this before.”

You had to look away throughout the C-section, but you knew when it was over because you heard the small gnarl. I asked you if you wanted to be the one to do it, and you nodded. It should be family. Someone who loves it. Always. But when you saw the tiny rotten foetus wriggling in my hands, you began to cry again and it was too much for you, so I did it... for you.

I don't know if I count as family, to him, to who would have been your brother. I didn’t know if I loved him, but I knew more than anything that I loved you, and that seemed to be enough.

An hour later, three graves were dug out back and your family were in the ground. We put the shovels back into the shed and used panels from the fence for their headstones. You carved a cross into your mother's, the star of David into your father's, and for the baby, you didn't put anything but what he would have been to you.

_BABY BROTHER_

We sat in front of their graves, sharing the banana bread.

“Thank you for keeping your promise.”

A few minutes later you asked, “Why are you crying?”

I wiped my face.

“Is it because of me?” you asked.

“No... I'm crying _for_ you.”

You found that funny. “I think I've cried enough for me already today.”

“No,” I replied, “you haven't.”

You just looked at me. You scratched your forehead and squinted.

“What is it?” I asked you.

“Can I tell you something?”

I nodded.

And you said, “I know about you and Tobin.”

You watched me.

“I see you... smoking with him on his porch every morning. Staying over every night.” You inhaled. “Do you love him?”

I shook my head.

“Then why did you do it?” you asked.

“I don't know,” I explained. “I just... wanted to. I just wanted to...”

“To feel something.”

I looked at you.

You told me, “Yesterday, I had sex with Enid. Not as a love thing... I... I just wanted to feel something, too.”

I wasn't sure what you wanted me to say to that, so for a moment I didn't say anything, and you sighed and rubbed your face with your fingertips. I thought of what I would have said to any other teenager if they'd told me the same thing in confidence. I thought of what I would say if Sophia had told me, if she were still alive, so I said, “You were safe, weren't you?”

This, apparently, was not what you wanted me to say.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I just...”

“We were.”

“‘Cause... I didn't explain about that, at the hospital.”

“It’s okay.”

“It didn't occur to me to. You and Carl...”

“It's okay,” you said again. “Enid... She knew... about...”

“Right.”

“Yeah.”

I squinted at the sky and then you asked another question.

“Can I tell you something else? Something I've never told anybody?”

Again, I nodded.

You started to cry again.

“A lot of the time I want to die,” you said, and that, Oliver De Luca, was the worst thing you have ever said to me.

“I think about Paula and Dawn and Gareth and the Governor,” you said, “and I'm jealous of them. Angry. How come they get to go? How come we think we win, when we're still here?”

You looked at me and you wiped your eyes, but the tears didn't stop and it was hard to understand what you were saying.

“I think of my parents, of my — my brothers. I think of Mikey. And Ron and Sam. And Nell and Mika and Lizzie and Tyreese. Beth and Hershel. I miss them. I miss Lori and I miss Dale and I miss Andrea and Amy and T-Dog and Jacqui, and Sophia, and... and I never even _met_ them. What's with that? Why do I have to feel so much for people who are gone? Who I didn't even know. Why do I have to be so sad about things I can't change?”

You dipped your head and glared at your lap.

“I hate the way I am,” you said. “And I... I just... I want to go, without hurting anybody. But you care too much. I wish you didn't care — no, no, I... I wish you didn't hurt when you cared. I know that that's selfish of me. I know. But... it's like I'm only here to keep other people from being sad — as sad as I am. And it kills me to know that you're as sad as that already.”

For a moment I had nothing to say to you. You had just said it all, except one thing.

“I need to tell you something,” I whispered.

You waited.

And waited.

But still, I could not tell you.

“Carol?”

You were looking up at me.

Your eyes can look so big.

They overwhelm me.

“What is it?” you asked.

_I'm doing something I always should have...  
but not yet._

I stood up.

“Come on, let's get what we need,” I said. “Pack light, though, okay?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

As we got ready to go, you asked me to have a pair of your mother's earrings.

“Oliver, I can't.”

“But I want you to.”

I felt guilty. You didn't understand why. I couldn't even tell you.

“Really,” you insisted. “You haven't worn any since the Saviors and I saw them on the dresser and thought they'd suit you.”

You closed my hand around them.

“They were _Nonna's_. She was a June baby. Pearl was her birthstone. When Mom became a mom, _Nonna_ gave them to her as a gift. I just... thought. You're... you know... so, my mom would want you to have them, too.”

I hugged you before you saw me crying. I put the earrings in and you just smiled at me. It almost made me feel beautiful. Maybe I even did, for a second, and then you and I stood in the front door.

“You ready?” I asked you.

You nodded nervously. “Yeah.”

...

Was it hard, Oliver De Luca, to go?

Like all those camps.  
The prison.  
The train station.  
The church.  
The hospital.  
Even that damned barn...

Was it difficult to leave?

I hope not. I hope it gets easier. Like practice. Or, maybe it's only hard up until you actually leave. Maybe then it will be the easiest thing I will ever do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was Unsteady by X Ambassadors. Second line in this chapter was inspired by Ariana Dancu's quote, "She made broken look beautiful and strong look invincible. She walked with the Universe on her shoulders and made it look like a pair of wings."
> 
> THIS CHAPTER LITERALLY HAS TAKEN ME YEARS AND I STILL WANT TO THROW IT OUT THE WINDOW
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	101. Season 6 ~ Twice as Far, Part 3: Arrow Bolt

There was one thing I did before I left my house. The window in my room was left open and the curtain was drawn back. There was bird crap on my dresser and wardrobe, some kind of large insect with far too many legs making a nest in my sock drawer, and then, in the corner, by my bed, I heard something meow, and there, behind my trash can, was a cat. It looks young, a straggly, yellow-ish coat, and riddled with fleas, that's why Carol told me to put it back.

As we follow the train tracks, the cat keeps meowing from my backpack, and finally, Carol stops walking and turns to me.

“You _brought_ it with us?!”

I shrug and keep walking.

“What is the matter with you?” she asks.

“Wanted to keep it...”

“You 'wanted to keep it'?”

I kick the stones under my boots. “I liked it...”

“Oliver, it's crueller bringing it with us.”

There’s a rustle in the treeline nearby. It’s happened a few times since we got back on the tracks and it’s making us nervous. Like last time, we see nothing. Keep moving. Hurry. Hear it again except this time I see a figure moving in the trees, raising their arm — I shoot in their direction, on reflex. Her brain explodes.

I stumble back. “I... I didn’t mean... I just—”

“Get back!”

It happens so fast — another stranger scampers out of the treeline like some wild thing. Only he’s a boy, like me.

“You killed Merope!” he cries.

“Don't,” Carol begs. “Don't, please.”

He runs at me, screaming, and then his whole body cracks open and I watch him die, and the next thing I'm aware of is that Carol is snatching my arm and we’re running.

“Shit — stay low. Stay low.” I do. “Think I saw others.”

Soon we’re getting back to the car and Daryl’s truck is still here but the rest of them aren’t yet. Carol curses. “Where are they? They should have gone home by now! It's been too long.” She puts my rucksack on the seat and tells me to get in. “Don't think we were followed. They looked desperate. Starved. Alone.”

I swallow.

“Get in. Stay low. Don't come out. I'll be back soon.”

“W...what?”

“Oliver, get in the car.”

I shut the door and put my back to it.

“I said _get in the car_ ,” Carol hisses.

“No.”

“Damn it, Oliver!”

“ _What,_ Carol?!” I bark. “What? Am I supposed to _be_ someone else, too?!”

Carol is staring at me.

“They aren't here yet...” I draw my Glock. “We wait together or we look together. Splitting up is stupid.”

“I just killed somebody for you.”

“And I killed someone for _you!_ ”

Despite my loud voice, her silence is louder.

She steps back. I don’t follow her.

“You hear _anything,_ ” she tells me, “you shoot and you run, alright? Get in.”

I open the door and then — “Good advice, lady.” We swing around and several men are emerging from the treeline, armed and aimed at us. “Ah, ah, ah. Put 'em down.”

The man in his thirties has a rhotic, breathless voice, blond, straggly hair tucked behind his ears, and the whole left side of his face is burned and scarred-up. He's holding a crossbow — _Daryl’s_. Him and his group surround us. They don't look much like the two we saw before; too organised.

“I ain't gonna ask you again,” Scarface insists.

Another man pulls Eugene out of the shrubs. He’s sweaty and crying. Carol looks at me, her eyes wet, then she looks at the ground and shakes her head. “I can't do this anymore...”

We’re grabbed and stripped of our possessions. They tell us not to move or talk while they bind our hands; for me, they fasten a zip-tie around my wrist and through my belt-loop, my right arm loose and useless.

They’re Saviors. Scarface, whose name is Dwight, is the group’s leader. We tell them our names, then we're led into the forest. I lose my bearings. I just know the tracks stay on our right. They tell us Negan will be glad to see us, that they've been looking for us for a long time now:—“Seven months... Damn. We were starting to lose hope in finding you guys. We were following those two — the ones you and your boy took down. We were gonna bring _them_ back.

Did us nasty a few days ago.

Yeah, but we ran into this lump, wondering the road. He looked interesting. Backpack full. Clean. Looking like he was off somewhere important. Ah, but his pony tail sealed the deal, right guys?”

They laugh. Nobody mentions Abraham.

“Then we heard you blasting up those poor bastards yourselves, and we couldn't pass up the opportunity of getting _three_ of you, now, could we? Now...” Dwight smiles. “It's only business.”

At one point, a man starts loitering around Carol, and then he tries to touch her neck and I swing around and bite him. I’m punched across the face and knocked to the ground.

“Damn bastard bit me!”

Someone hits me again.

“No, _please_ _!_ ” I hear Carol. “ _Stop!_ ”

Then Dwight is here. He grabs the loiterer and shoves him back.

“What the hell are you doing?” he growls.

They keep talking. I don't know what they say exactly but I know they listen to Carol because I’m not getting beaten anymore. My face throbs.

“Excuse us,” Dwight says, breathless. I hear a few men shuffling and grumbling. Someone pulls me up. “That won't happen to you again, ma'am. Negan doesn't like that kinda violence. Zero tolerance.”

We keep walking, but soon, we stop at someone’s voice in the distance.

“There's a cooler in there! Might be something we can use inside!”

It’s Denise.

“We got what we came for!” Rosita answers.

“Nah! Ain't worth the trouble, c'mon!” Daryl calls. “Gotta find those shots. If it's them they wouldn'ta used two bullets for jus' a couple walkers.”

“ _Hooly_ fuck,” Dwight mutters. “These your people, too?”

Carol nods, trembling.

“Today is a _good_ day, boys...”

Talk happens quickly. My voice won’t work. My feet scuff against the earth and leaves. We stop at the tree-line, hidden inside it, tracks ahead.

“What the hell was that?” Daryl yells. “You coulda died right there, you know that?”

“Who gives a shit!?” Denise shouts back. “ _You_ could've died killing those Saviors, all of you, but you _didn't_! You wanna live? You take chances. That's how it works! That's what I did!”

“For a couple o' damned sodas?”

“Nope. Just this one... C'mon, let's find them.”

“Are you seriously _that_ stupid?” Rosita yells.

“Are you?” Denise asks.

 _Run,_ I scream in my head. _Run!_ I hate my throat. I hate my mouth. I hate my lungs. When I need them most they forget they're a part of me. They forget _I_ tell _them_ what to do.

“I mean it, are you? Do you have _any clue_ what that was to me? What this whole thing is to me? See, I have training in this shit. I'm not making it up as I go along, like with the stitches and the amputation, and the...

I asked you to come with me because you're brave like my brother and sometimes you actually make me feel safe.

And I wanted you here because you're alone. Probably for the first time in your life. And because you're stronger than you think you are, which gives me hope, that maybe I can be, too.

I could've gone with Tara.

I coulda told her I loved her but I didn't.

Because I was afraid...”

The crossbow comes up in Dwight's arms.

“ _That's_ what's _stupid._ Not coming out here, not _facing_ my shit, and it makes me _sick_ that you guys aren't even _trying!_ Because you're strong, and you're smart, and you're _really good people_ and if you don't wake—”

_ftwoop_

“—up—”

A bolt travels through skull and eye socket.

“—and face... your... _urr..._ ”

It's like she's still in there, like she's just confused about why her mouth isn't doing what she's asking it to, like she’s so filled up and passionate that she just hasn't caught up yet, and then she does catch up, and she falls into Daryl's arms. It’s too late to do anything.

They’re forced to drop their guns while Carol, Eugene and I are dragged up the track and knelt down in a line in front of them.

“You got something to say to me?!” Dwight asks Daryl. “Clear the air? Step up on that high horse? No. You don't talk much.”

They’re stripped of their weapons and supplies.

“Still getting the hang of her,” Dwight goes on. “Crossbow kicks like a _bitch_ but — What was that? Seriously, I didn't catch what you said.”

“I shoulda killed you.”

“Yeah, you probably should've.” Dwight smiles. “So, here we are. Kinda begs the question, right? Who brought this on who? I mean, I get that you'll just have to take my word for this but... she wasn't even who I was aiming for.”

“Like I said,” Dwight goes on. “Kicks like a bitch. It's nothin' personal. Look, this isn't how we like to start new business arrangements but you pricks kinda set the tone, didn't you?”

“What do you want?” Rosita snaps.

“I'm sorry, darlin'. I didn't catch your name. I'm D. Or Dwight, you can call me either. _So,_ what's your name?”

“Rosita. _What do you want?_ ”

“Well, _Ro-si-ta._ It's not what I _want._ It's what you and your friends are going to do. You're going to let us into your little complex. It looks like it's just beautiful in there. And then you're going to let us take whatever, and _whoever,_ we want.

 _Or_ we blow the boy's brains out, then theirs, then yours.

I hope it doesn't come to that, really. Nobody else has to die. We usually just try to start with one. You know: maximum impact to get our point across.

So, what's it going to be, you tell me?”

“You wanna kill someone,” Eugene burst out saying, “you start with our companion hiding over there behind the oil barrels. He's a first-class a-hole and he deserves it so much more than us five.”

We all look but see nothing. Dwight sends off a few men to check. I glance at Carol. She's staring at the floor, shaking her head, and then Eugene swivels around and bites what’s between Dwight's legs. He doubles forward, screaming. Gunfire explodes across the tracks. Abraham, who _was_ behind the oil barrels, takes out two men right off the bat. Daryl slits one's throat, then shoots more. Rosita has the machine-gun. Carol screams something and then she throws herself on top of me. We duck under the bullets. Walkers are coming. One grabs her foot but somebody shoots it. I see Eugene, shot, before Carol grabs me again.

“FALLBACK! FALLBACK!”

Gunfire clangs against iron, spraying embers over our heads, until it stops, and there’s just breathing. Rosita grabs us, cutting our zip-ties, and we're crowding around Eugene who's groaning and bleeding. Daryl grabs his crossbow and runs after the retreating Saviors but Rosita orders him back. Denise is still laid along the tracks, dead.

We have to get them back.

We have to get back.

* * *

 

At home, Eugene gets treated — flesh wound; without the meds Denise found today, he would’ve died. Carol, Daryl and I get to digging Denise's grave.

“Stop, Oliver,” Carol tells me.

I don’t.

“Stop. Look at me — _stop it!_ ” She snatches my arm, pulling my sleeve; my whole arm is purple. “What is— _What is that?!_ ”

I wrench my arm out of her grip and shove my sleeve down. “The Saviors. Beat me—”

“No. No that was an hour ago. Those are old.”

I don’t say anything.

“What is wrong with you?” she asks. “Don’t you see, you’re ruining yourself!”

I throw my shovel at the pile of dirt and kick it, sending earth scattering into the hedge as I walk away.

“What're you doin', Carol?”

“What?”

“Don't you think he knows it's wrong? Y'don't think he knows that shit already?”

“There's so much pain already.”

I’m too far away to hear anymore. I go to the truck. Rummage through the glove box. Check the middle compartment. Under the seat. Yes. Some of the little Danville Bridge whiskey bottles are gone. I could get away with taking one or two more, but in the end I take the lot.

I don't bother to conceal the bag as I head home.

“Oliver?”

I turn around, the bag of whiskey crackling.

“Hey,” Glenn adds, “you... coming to the funeral?”

I shake my head.

He scratches his head and points. “What are you doing with all those?”

“I'm going to drink them.”

“Yourself?”

“Yep.”

“Why?”

I shrug.

“If you're thirsty, you know we have taps, right?” He's trying to make a joke but I'm busy walking away. “Hey, hey, wait, wait... come on, what're you doing?”

I look into his eyes and I say, “I put my parents down today, and I killed a person, and I saw Denise die... so I'd like to go, for a while — for now, if you don't mind, sir... Honestly, even if you do mind, I'm still going to.”

Glenn sighs. I don't know why because I'm working very hard on not changing anything in my face. My chest still hurts like something inside it is trying to scream. I hold it down. Don't even breathe. He puts his hand on my shoulder.

“Please,” I say, “I’ll punch you in the throat if you try to stop me.”

He squeezes.

“Honestly, Glenn. I will.”

“Oliver...” I'm putting the bag of booze over my other arm now. “...you are not going to — _rufck!_ ” And Glenn Rhee and the side-walk collide with a loud grunt. I hop on the spot. He clutches his Adam's apple. “ _Jesus,_ man!”

“I... I'm sorry. I... I said I would,” I mutter, shaking my knuckle. “You didn't believe me.”

Glenn gets up and snatches the bag from me. I've not had much practice with fists and I'm still shocked that I just did that, and he knows it, so he dodges my next punch and grabs my collar with his free hand before I can catch myself. I struggle and grunt and call him names I've never called anybody, and then we're both just breathing very hard and his hands are on both of my shoulders holding me still. Glenn's eyes are very brown. Not brown like mine. Not brown like Michonne's either. Glenn's brown is like wet tree bark, like something you can trust your life with if you wanted to.

I don't want to.

“Get the hell off me!”

“Oliver, listen to me!”

“Let me go!”

“ _Stop!_ ” he shouts. He lets go so I stumble. He points a finger. I swat it away. I try to walk away but he grabs me again. “You are _not_ doing this today, man! You are coming to her funeral because she loved you and you are her family!”

“ _My family is dead!_ ”

Glenn is not as angry anymore. Neither is he as loud. In fact, his voice is thick and quiet. “That's not true,” he whispers. “You know that.”

My jaw’s clenched so hard I can't even reply.

Glenn grimaces.

“You're _supposed_ to be there for her,” he says. “We're supposed to be there for you. Even now. Even always.” He rubs his eyes, and when he points, this time he uses his whole hand. “You can't just push us away because it's scary. You kids keep _doing_ that, like... like you think it'll work. Like you think it's gonna _stop_ it from hurting. Well it's _not_ _!_ It doesn't _stop_ hurting, that's why you keep _trying._ Because when it's good, even for a little while, it is _so_ good. It's worth it. _Get_ _that through your head._ Please?”

I'm looking at my boots, scowling and swatting away tears. Glenn swallows, rubbing his throat. It's turning red. The truck is only a few yards away because I didn't get very far and he marches over and puts the booze on the front seat, then he's coming back, walking past.

“You come to the funeral or you get back in that truck,” he says. “It’s your choice, Oliver.”

* * *

 

After Denise's funeral, people start moving towards the clinic for the wake. Tobin kisses Carol's forehead as he goes, Abraham frowns a lot, Carl hugs Sasha, and Rick pats my shoulder and calls me a “Good boy.” Before Rosita leaves, she nods to Denise's grave like they'd been talking, like she’s got ghosts too. When Michonne goes, she hugs me — her hugs are neat and secure and warm, full of dreadlocks and calm, all over, and when she pulls away I feel like I'm floating.

Daryl is the last to leave.

“Will you be okay?” Carol asks him.

“Sure.”

He doesn’t come to the clinic, and even though I do, I keep mostly to myself. I sit on the window ledge, in the same room Carl woke up in, overlooking the lake. Bean’s here, sitting at my feet.

Rosita and Eugene are arguing over if he should drink, on account of the antibiotics he's dosed up on. Carol was talking with the others but now she's gathering her things and telling me she’ll be at home.

“You staying?”

Spotting Enid making her way towards me, I nod.

“Okay. Be home for supper.”

As Carol leaves, Enid sits behind me and puts her hands in my pockets and presses her nose into the space between my shoulder-blades — when she inhales, my spine goes cool, and when she exhales, it warms up again.

Finally, I ask, “Tell me your name, Enid?”

“What?”

“I want to know it.”

I feel her frown. “Does it matter?”

“It does.”

My spine warms, and into it, she whispers, “Enid Cholle. It's Welsh. From the word cholledig, which means _lost_. My parents were into that kinda stuff. They thought it was poetic, giving me a name that meant _Lost Soul._ Pretty ironic, huh? Pretty sad.”

And I say, “Yeah.”

And she says, “You look like a lost soul.... lost boy.”

And I say, “Yeah.”

And then a lot of time passes before she says, “Yeah.”

She gets up.

“I forgot something.”

I can’t ask what it is as she’s leaving already, so I sit for a while longer until Rosita offers me a bottle of whiskey. I confess that I was going to steal them and she just rolls her eyes and slips a few small bottles into my hoodie. I'm not about to argue.

I also need to pee.

It's quiet upstairs. After I pee, I decide to stay upstairs for a while. Others come and go to the bathroom but otherwise nobody pays me much attention. I sit at the end of landing on the floor, knees against my chest. At some point, Enid returns with Carl.

“Where'd you find it?” he asks her.

“I didn't,” she replies.

I realise that I haven’t had enough whiskey for this. Haven’t had any.

“Hey, Lost Boy.” Enid sits with me. “We couldn't find you.”

Carl sits with us. As uncomfortable as this is, I guess today’s circumstance is enough to loosen the tension a bit.

Then I realise what I’m looking at, in his palm, where a very soggy, very startled, very straggly kitten sits. Carl struggles to hold onto it, and it will hiss and claw at him if he moves too much.

“I didn't mean to look through your things,” Enid explains, “but backpacks aren't meant to hiss. I gave it a bath, some scraps. We can’t tell how old it is or if it’s a boy or a girl, but it eats solids and we gave it flea and worm treatment, so it’ll be okay.”

It looks like a very angry miniature lion.

“It's kind of mean,” Carl says.

“Olivia says it just needs to settle in,” Enid tells us. “She says, if it lives, it'll be useful for rodent control.”

“You thought of a name for it?” Carl asks.

“Maybe we shouldn't name it yet,” Enid says. “We don’t know if it’ll even make it.”

The landing fills with meowing and it occurs to me that I haven't yet contributed to the conversation.

Enid reaches into my pocket and pulls out the Danville Bridge bottles. “Are you drinking?”

I shake my head.

“Do you want to?” she asks.

I shrug, so she pops open the little cork stopper and takes a swig. It makes her grimace. She hands it to me. I drink, too. The whiskey burns but once it’s down it makes my chest and belly warm.

Carl drinks some, too — splutters. “ _Ugh..._ that's so nasty.”

Enid and I keep drinking until the small bottle is empty. I lay it on its side against the floor and roll it back and forth under my finger. The sound tickles my ears.

“If you don’t want them, can I have the others?” she asks.

“Go ahead.”

She drinks another one alone, and with her lips all wet and twisted, she asks me, “Did you go home?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it over? Is it done?”

“Yeah...”

The kitten mewls. Enid decides to take it back to her house. I offer to go with her but she declines and tells me to stay. She also takes the last two bottles of whiskey with her. Then it's just me and Carl. Neither of us say much. People come and go to the bathroom. Carl seems frustrated, and I think he's been crying; his eyes are puffy and red and blood shot. He and Denise were close, too.

He looks at me, running his hand up through his hair. The silence between us is killing me, but that doesn't mean it'll be me who breaks it.

Realising this, he sighs. “What do you want me to say, Oliver? You haven't talked to me in three days... I just want to help — to do _something_. You're—”

“I don't need you to help,” I retort. “I don't _need_ you to _do_ anything. Not you or Enid or anybody. You don't have to fix me. Stop trying to fix me. Let _me_ fix me. All I need you to do is just... just...”

“Just _what_?”

“Just _be_.”

Carl glares, his eye goes cold, like ice. And I know that I sound like a brat. I know that I’m offered help every day and I still don't take it. _I know I know I know._

“You know what?” he asks. “Screw you.”

“No,” I retort, sitting forward. “Screw _you._ I get shitted on all the time. Put through hell. And I get kidnapped and molested and shot and made to eat cigarettes, and then, when I'm safe again, when I'm on my own, in my own head, and when it's all biting me in the _fucking_ asshole, I do things I shouldn't because I am mad and sad and lonely. I can't help it. Sometimes I want to die. I want to stop it myself so that nothing else gets the chance. But the reason I don't is because of you... It's... It's because of Carol, and Enid, and Glenn and Maggie, and Tara, and Rosita, and Michonne and your dad. It was because of Denise. All of you. And it still is. Because this whole place and everybody still here _is_ still here.”

He's staring at me. If I look at his throat I can see his heartbeat between his collarbones.

“I am _not_ okay,” I tell him. “And neither are you.”

I stop, shutting my eyes.

“Look, I'm just sick of it, too, aright?” I say. “I am. I'm _sick_ of there always being this bad air between us. I'm sick of ignoring it, and telling myself it's easier that way. It’s not. But—”

Someone is coming up the stairs.

“Dad...”

“Boys,” Rick says, and asks if we're alright — I pocket both empty whiskey bottles and we say we’re fine so Rick uses the bathroom.

While his dad’s inside, I tell Carl, “But I'm not sick of you, man...” which is the last thing I wanted to say, because I mean it, because: “I really hope you aren't sick of me either.”

As Rick leaves, I'm looking at Carl's mouth because it’s stretching and he’s shaking his head like he's just heard the most ridiculous thing in the world to him.

“I'll, uh, take that as a 'no' then?” I ask, smiling, too.

“No,” he confirms. “I'm not sick of you, dumbass.”

“Good.”

Rick, stopping before us, says, “Come downstairs, boys,” and we go.

“Hey. Man. I'm sorry about Denise,” I tell Carl while I follow him across the clinic into the room he woke up in. Michonne is here, sitting on the edge of the bed with Judith, who’s asleep, clinging to Patty. “She saved your life.”

“Saved yours, too,” Carl says, telling his father and Michonne he'll be around. Mrs. Miller tells him he's a good young man and he says, “Thank you, ma’am.”

“Do you remember that day?” I say to him between outside conversations, because I'm also telling Rick and Michonne I'll see them around and putting up with Mrs. Miller pinching my cheeks.

Carl holds the door open. “Yeah, I do.”

As he crosses the street, I ask, “What are we doing?”

Carl shrugs. “Hanging out, guess. Do you want to?”

I'm squinting, nodding.

Carl nods, too. He grabs my sleeve and tugs me to accompany him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIP Denise
> 
> I really liked the boy and woman who Carol and Oliver killed. They were like some weird reflection of how Oliver and Carol see themselves. The name, Merope, in Greek, means foster mother, because I'm honestly trash when it comes to that symbolism shit.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	102. Season 6 ~ Fair Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Most of this is in Carl’s pov. But there’s a small centred bit in Oliver’s.

We travel across the community together —me on a bike and Oliver on his skateboard— following the wall all the way round the solar panels until we come out and ride across the footpath past the lake. As we ride past the church, he shows off with a few ollies.

I roll my eyes because I’ve forgotten how to translate mind-to-mouth. I stand on the pedals and tell him to hold onto my seat, pedalling faster, air whipping past my face and inside my hair. I glance at Oliver and he’s making a hand-whale through the air. I watch it swim and swoop.

Finally, I stop my bike at the end of a street one away from home, where the basketball hoop by the wall is. I drop my bike. Oliver's skateboard scrapes and catches it under his arm, telling me “ _Andiamo, idiota,_ ” when I trip over my bike.

I manage to put the ball through the hoop once out of four. Oliver doesn’t do much better, but the practice is good for us, like PT. After a while, he decides to tell me a story he heard recently.

“There was a girl who was having a hard time and wanted to give up. The girl tells her mom, so, her mom, she boils three pots of water, puts a carrot in one, an egg in the other, and ground coffee beans in the third. When they’re done boiling, the mom says, _'They all went through the same thing, the carrot went in strong and came out soft, the egg was fragile and came out hard, but the coffee beans changed the water itself.'_.”

I think about this for a few minutes, watching him shoot hoops.

I ask, “Which are you?”

And he says, “Not the coffee beans.”

And I say, “Me neither.”

Then I ask him, “What if nobody really is the coffee beans? What if the outbreak was? Because, I don't know, it changed the whole world. And, with the carrot and the egg? What if some of us aren't those either? What if we... just... don't have to be? What if we're like... salt or sugar?”

Oliver looks at me, basketball in hand.

“Hear me out,” I say, taking the ball and shooting — miss. “Think about when you make your coffee in the morning.”

“Not every morning.”

“Some mornings — when you put the sugar or the salt in the boiling water, right... mix it around some. And sometimes all the salt and sugar’s all gone and sometimes you can still tell it's there by looking, right? It all depends on how much the water's boiled. How much it's mixed in. How much it's been through.”

“I... guess?”

“So, the sugar and salt's adapted. It's changed. And some of it's the same and some of it's gotten lost along the way... but it's always in there. Salt or sugar. You take a sip, you taste it. It's still salt. It's still sugar.”

Oliver's face is all relaxed, all his bruises and cuts and scars, eyes catching the gold in the sunset and keeping it.

“Like you, and like me,” I go on, “we've been through it, and some parts of us have gotten lost on the way and we're not the same anymore, but we're still us.”

Oliver is watching me but I can't tell what he's thinking. I'm thinking about how the corner of his lip is burned and sore and the cut on his shoulder-blade has left a red stain on his shirt and the scar on his temple and lip are never going away and he flinches when he looks at flowers sometimes. I'm thinking about how desperately I want him to feel better again, what I would do to take all the hurt away.

I shoot and miss more hoops because I get that feeling like I’m not well again, like I might do something stupid, like I might burst. The street is a dim pink and orange. I pass the ball and he catches it. He frowns at the rubber and then up at me, then passes it back.

“Let’s play?” I ask.

Oliver smiles. “Sure, man.”

What Oliver lack’s in aiming he makes up in sure footedness. He can dodge and swivel all my ambushes. He’ll steal the ball and score some goals but most bounce off the back-board. I manage to catch him out a few times and make some fluke trick shots, he curses in Italian and I laugh my ass off at him. Granted, the game _is_ a fair fight. We draw the whole time. I hate to draw. I prefer to win. I like to be taller and stronger and I like to have two eyes instead of one. He scores again and I curse, chasing him across the street.

“Isn't your ass tired?” he laughs.

“Who says it's _my_ ass?”

He laughs so hard I manage to snatch the ball — he grabs it, holds on, and then we’re just scuffing and pulling and grunting and I kiss him...

wait,  
that last one wasn't supposed to happen,

Then again, I think there are a fair amount of things that aren't supposed to happen but still happen anyway, like getting shot in the eye or bitten on the hand or killing your dead parents or kissing a boy you're still in love with.

Oliver jerks back, his laughter swallowed at the back of his throat to die. He lets go of the ball. “Woah, man...”

A wind picks up. It's fresh and cold. I look at the bruises across his neck, dark and purple. I look at them because I’m too afraid to look at his face.

“Carl.”

I'm brave (or stupid) enough to glance up at him. His face is red and shining, even though it's cold this afternoon. Our breath makes fog. I start shivering. Him, too. He looks mad, like he'll leave, maybe even lash out. And then he steps forward. I startle. I rise on my toes. And this kiss is fast like the last. Fast enough that I don't have time to untangle my thoughts or react. He’s warm. And then he steps back and my eyes are still closed.

He snatches the basketball and scores another goal.

“I win.”

I just nod because _yes, he has_. I haven't moved yet. I have to come down from that. I have to swallow the laugh away from my throat, shake the stun from my expression, all before he notices.

“Hey.”

“Hmm?”

“You still playing, man?”

I catch the ball when he throws it, rolling it over in my hand.

“Erm. Yeah,” I answer. “Yeah I am.”

Another game. I win this time. When the game ends, we decide to have another ride around Alexandria. Oliver climbs on the back of my bike, his feet on the wheel bars and his front against my back. His hand grips my shoulder and when I pick up speed, he lets go, stretching out both arms like wings. I glance back at him. His head is tipped back and his eyes are shut and his hair flies around his face. His fingers shake against the air. And his grin. It’s wide open, like... like he's having the time of his life all because of _me_. And he either thinks looking like that is a safe idea for my focus or he _intends_ for me to pedal right into the side of Aaron and Eric’s car.

* * *

 

“Oliver, come down. Supper’s ready!”

“Err... I’m not hungry.”

“Come down anyway.”

“Fine...”

“Thanks you.”

“Hey. Why don't you ever invite Tobin here? He could eat with us both? I wouldn't mind... I think he's goofy and tall and awkward, but he's alright. Nice to you. And he helped Enid fix the shelf in the pantry a couple months ago. Maybe he could help me fix my window. Plus... if he ate here I wouldn't have to eat alone.”

“Oliver, you're not eating alone.”

“I am, Carol... I don't mind... Hey, I'm reading this new book. It’s about this woman. Clare. She was this virgin Saint from Assisi, Italy, which is where half of my family's from. Saint Clare, she foundered the Order of Poor Ladies and wrote this _Rule of Life_ thing, which was like the first monastic rule written by a woman... and... err... Sorry. It's... kinda boring.”

“No, no. Sorry. Keep going.”

“Well, the story I'm reading is a fiction about a girl called Nancy, who meets Saint Clare. Nancy's only thirteen but she's had to do all this horrible stuff to keep her and her baby brother alive. But... her brother died, and after everything she'd done to keep him safe she couldn't take it, so she ran away. Other stuff happens, she bounces around a lot, not really coming or going anywhere, but the round-up of it all is that she somehow winds up in this place, a good place, but she's totally changed after all the terrible things she's seen. She thinks she's too far gone to be saved. It's almost too late. But Saint Clare helps her, brings her back... I just... like the story...”

“What?”

“You aren’t listening.”

“I'm... I’m sorry. I'm just... a little tired.”

“Carol?”

“Hm?”

“Are you okay? And don't say you have to be. That isn't answering the question.”

“I need to make sure you'll be okay.”

“What?”

“I'm not gonna be around forever. You know that, don't you? Oliver... please?”

“Quit that! Quit going on about it like I don't know — I do know people die, I've seen it — we both have — you don't have to make me say it... You can _stop._ You can stop, Carol.”

“I can't.”

“I won't be okay, of course I won't, and neither will you when I die—”

“Don't say—”

“—but that's just how it works. We... face our shit.”

“...It's past your bedtime.”

“Hm. Yeah, it's like an entire month past my bedtime.”

“M-hm. All the more reason to go up.”

“You know, I pray before I sleep now, sometimes, if I remember to. Sometimes I just forget, and, sometimes... sometimes I just don't.”

“Go say your prayers.”

* * *

 

It’s late but it’s also important, so I rush to Oliver house and knock hard on his front door.

“Carl, what the hell?”

“You have to come with me.”

He, like me, is in his pyjamas, though at least he has a pair of sneakers. “Wh... what?”

“It's Enid.”

“What's wrong with her?”

“Nothing, I'm pretty sure — I mean, I think she's had too much to drink.”

He finds this both funny and concerning. “She drank it all? I thought she would put them in the pantry.”

“I did, too.”

“Jesus...”

“Just, come on, and keep it down.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, Blood on my Machete, for pretty much writing the salt and coffee conversation for me! That was so beautiful! I may or may not have used 500 tweaked words of the basketball kiss for a sample applying to university back in April (2016). Worked though, I guess.
> 
> Tbt Carol at Sophia S1E6 "Baby, go say your prayers."  
> Carol at Oliver S6E14 "Go say your prayers."
> 
> Also, I'm just gonna pretend that Carol said her name was Nancy from Montclair when she met the Saviours because she remembered Nancy in Oliver's book who met Saint Clare (which isn't a real book but Saint Clare was a real woman – she probably wouldn't be happy about being mentioned in fanfiction...) so Carol just tweaked it, or maybe remembered it wrong.
> 
> Happy reading.


	103. Season 6 ~ I Do. I Promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Turn away now if you hate fluff

_No was her name_   
_No was the lion that no-one could tame_   
_But Faith was his name_   
_Faith came around with a smile on his face anyway_

_He said, “Tell, tell me now,_   
_Tell me the worry that knit up your brow”_

_She said, “Slow down this train,_   
_Slow down the iron that runs in my veins...”_

The sun has set, with the last slithers of blue left in the sky. Apparently, Rick wanted Carl to grab some apples from the pantry before bed, but when he got there, Enid was lying under a shelf:—“Scared the crap out of me. She wouldn’t let me get Olivia, said she wanted you... Look, just, come on. We should hurry.”

On arrival, Olivia's hesitant to let us in. “It's late. Enid's asleep. Why do you need to see her so urgently?” Carl and I get around having to tell on her by saying we'd planned to watch a movie, and that she’s waiting for us. Olivia gets ready for bed and Carl and I go up to Enid’s room, where she’s sitting on her bed with a bucket in her lap. Empty, thankfully.

She gives me the cat and calls is Scab and tells me to keep Bean away from it. When she tries to get up her knees give out so she sits again, Carl and I sitting either side of her.

“Are you both friends again?” she asks.

Carl and I smile at each other. Enid blows a raspberry on my cheek and I brush her off. Bean sticks his nose into my hands and the cat slaps him and he backs off.

“Enid,” I say, “do you mind if I shave?”

She shrugs. “There are some unused women’s razors in the bathroom.”

“Thanks,” I say.

She decides to follow me; holding the hem of my pyjama shirt as we go. I help her sit on the bathtub, but she still decides to sit in it.

I sneeze.

“I think you’re allergic,” Enid says, “to the cat.”

Another sneeze. I start lathering my face with shaving cream — it’s for legs but I don’t suppose it makes much difference.

“There’s allergy pills,” she adds, “in the cupboard.”

With a blocked nose and watering eyes, I flip the mirror cupboard open and grab some. I swallow them with the tap water.

“I'll look after Scab,” Enid tells me.

“Olivia's okay with that?”

“She likes cats. More than she likes dogs.”

I get to shaving, sneezing a few more times. When I’m done, Enid is falling asleep so I help her back into her room, quietly enough we can hear Olivia snoring from her bedroom. Carl’s in there, reading her comics. He helps me get her comfortable, with the bucket not too far away just in case, and with everything settled, I beckon Carl to leave with me.

On the walk home, I tell him what I brought back from home and then we stand outside my house talking some more.

“Look...” I sigh. “Earlier—”

“I know. I know it was just kissing, like you and Enid. I know.”

I stutter, not knowing what to say.

“It’s okay,” he says. “I don’t mind who you kiss. I don’t care who you’re with... so long as we’re still friends.”

“I’m not with anybody,” I blurt out. “I... Enid and I... we’ve been... together, but... not like that. And we don’t do that anymore.”

He watches me, thinking about that.

“Okay,” he says.

I take a steep breath and nod.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

And he says, “Okay.”

And then I ask him to kiss me and he does and it’s the kind of kiss that reminds me of the colours inside of my eyelids.

“You shouldn’t kiss me like this.”

“Yeah... sorry... I—”

“Don’t be...”

And he kisses me again — kisses me until I forget what the moon looks like and the colour of the sky and the sounds of the birds and the crickets and the trees and the walkers.

“Night,” he says finally.

“Night, man.”

* * *

 

**~The Second Letter Carol Never Sent~**

* * *

_Oliver._

_I'm sorry I almost woke you. I didn't mean to. Thinking back, I should have just left, I know that, I do. But I couldn't bring myself to. Not to you. I had to say goodbye, even if you would never fully know it._

_You were so settled. Breathing slow and steady. I kissed your temple and touched your hand and brushed your fringe out of your eyes. You were so tired. You could hardly open your eyes._

_“Go back to sleep,” I told you. And I don't know why it was so important in that moment to you, but you told me that you loved me, and I told you that I loved you, too. “I do,” I whispered. “I promise.”_

_You know; through everything, you and I have never told each other that. There's always been other words to replace it or a door or banister or wall between us. Hearing you say it killed me, Oliver. It really did. I wanted so badly to stay. Want so much it destroys me. And that's exactly why I have to go._

_You felt it, I know that, because when I slipped away from your fingers, you cried, even in your sleep. I watched you and I prayed for you to forget me. I know you won’t. I know you can't. But I prayed for you anyway. Prayed like you do._

_I hope He listens this time._

_I know that before I wondered if it was hard for you, to go. If it was difficult to leave. I thought it wouldn't be. I thought, after everything, it would get easier like practice, or that maybe when I did it myself it would be easier, but I was wrong._

_Walking out of those gates._   
_Starting up that car._   
_Leaving you behind._

_It was the hardest thing I will ever do._

_...._

_Oliver._

_I'm sorry I almost woke you. I didn't mean to._

_I love you._

_I do. I promise._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was Kitchen Door by Wolf Larson. Carol is meant to be like No and Oliver, Faith.
> 
> Confession: I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I AM DOING. They aren't back together. Not even close. It just happened.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	104. Season 6 ~ East, Part 1: Empty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: mentions of self harm

_"We become what we love and who we love shapes what we become._   
_If we love things, we become a thing._   
_If we love nothing, we become nothing."_   
_~ Saint Clare ~_

* * *

_I was on my way to you and I was worried_   
_I was all torn up and nervous 'cause I knew that you'd be gone_   
_I knocked and crossed my fingers while I waited_   
_And I couldn't hold the teardrops when I walked away alone_

_It's all over, it's all over, my heart echoed it's all over_   
_Every minute that you cry for her is wasted, don't you know?_   
_It's all over, it's all over, my heart echoed, it's all over_   
_Stop your cryin', turn around and let her go_

The next morning, I don’t find Carol on Tobin’s porch. The ashtray is empty and the swing sways in the breeze.

“Was gonna see if I could talk to her, too.”

Jumping, I turn and see Morgan standing in the grass by the solar panels. He'd been practicing his martial arts.

"Yeah," he adds, as if I’d replied to him. He leans on his staff, his face twisting into a squint against the dawn. “Didn't see her either.”

I don't say anything.

Morgan dips his head. “I'm sorry,” he says. It's a fact, not a confession.

“You’re not,” I say.

“Look, I know it probably doesn't mean much to you right now, but what happened — I know you know. I _am_ sorry. I am... Oliver?”

I walk away, Nancy’s Saint Clare tucked under my arm. I don’t feel good, like too many small things have built up around the big things —my head is in a glass jar filled with golf balls, then filling the gaps with marbles, then filling the rest of the gaps with sand, and from the outside you can’t even see the marbles or the golf balls anymore, just a jar of sand.

And then I’m hurting myself again. The pain of every pinch and scratch and punch is awful, but at least the pain in my skin is better than the pain in my brain, cancelling it out, almost.

I stop when there’s a knock at the door downstairs. It’s Tobin, asking where Carol is. I tell him I don’t know. He shows me a letter and even though I know what’s inside, I read it...

_‘I wish it didn't have to end, not this way. It was never my intention to hurt you. But it's how it has to be. We have so much here. People, food, medicine, walls. Everything we need to live. But what we have, other people want, too, and that will never change. If we survive this threat and it's not over, another one will be back to take its place, to take what we have. I love you all here. I do. And I'd have to kill for you. And I can't. I won't. Rick sent me away and I wasn't ever gonna come back, but everything happened and I wound up staying. But I can't anymore. I can't love anyone because I can't kill for anyone. So I'm going like I always should have. Don't come after me, please.’_

“Go get Rick.”

* * *

 

As soon as I tell Daryl what’s happened, he grabs his crossbow and speeds off on his motorbike. Michonne, Rosita and Glenn get in the eagle truck, too, but shut the door in my face.

“What are you doing?” I ask. “Let me in.”

“You aren't coming with us,” Michonne says.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Oliver, stay here,” Glenn barks.

I shout something at him and hit the door but they don’t let up and then they’re all yelling at me and Abraham is pulling me back. I stagger, out of breath, and watch Glenn drive away.

“We’ll find them...”

Maggie touches my shoulder, but I jerk away.

Morgan’s coming over from the solar panels, looking mad at me, and then Rick and Tobin are coming.

“What time did she leave?” Rick’s saying, letter in hand. “Know what she took?”

“Some time in the night, I never heard her go,” Tobin answers. “But she made a bunch of food, you know? She took a pack, wa–”

“Did she leave on foot?” Rick asks.

“I – I don't know...”

“I saw her. I think I did,” I say. “She said goodbye before she left.”

“And you didn't _say_ anything?!” Rick growls.

“I was half asleep...”

“You coulda _stopped_ her!”

“ _I didn't know she would leave me again!_ ” I shout back. “She was there and then she was gone!”

I feel lost.

Rick sighs. “She knew what she was doing. She didn't want anybody going after her.”

“Rick,” Sasha says. “I took over at twelve. I was on 'til six. I never saw anything.”

“Road's been quiet since the others left,” Abraham adds.

“ _What_?” Rick hisses. “Who?”

“Daryl, he went ICMB after the Saviors from yesterday. Carol, Glenn, Michonne, Rosita, they all went to shut that shit down.”

“No,” I say. “Carol just... left. It wasn’t about stopping the Saviors.”

“Where's the other car?” Tobin asks, looking out through the gate.

We all look; out the front gate is the long cul-de-sac road. In the distance, there’s a parked truck in the middle of the road, blocking part of the road. Dotted around the rest of the driveway were four parked cars.

Tobin turns to us. “We added two more cars yesterday, one of them's missing. The one we put right between those houses.”

“Can barely see between the houses from up top,” Abraham says. “Especially at night.”

Sasha’s nodding.

Morgan asks for the note and Rick hands it to him.

“You never saw any head-lights?” Rick asks. “ _Tail-_ lights? She's smart enough to cover her tracks.”

“She must've left during the shift change,” Sasha replies.

Morgan’s walking to the car.

“Where you goin'?” Rick calls.

“I'm gonna go find her.”

“ _Wait,_ ” Rick says. I follow but he grabs my arm. “No, Oliver, you're staying.”

“I can help!” I argue.

“No. You've done _enough._ "

“But—”

“No buts. We’ll bring her home.”

“God _dammit_!” I shout, and shove him. He steps back. “She doesn't _want_ to come home."

"Oliver."

" _Rick,_ " I snap back. "She sees you coming she's gonna run. I can help you find her... I can talk to her. Please... Please..."

He grits his teeth, then pinches his nose, and finally throws his hand up and tells me, "Got your things?”

"Yes, sir."

“Tell Carl I'll be back soon,” he tells the others. Abraham opens the gate. Sasha’s shaking her head. “No one else leaves! Everyone stays ready for a fight!” And then the three of us are leaving Alexandria Safe Zone.

 _ Mercy _ _for the lost  
Vengeance for the plunderers_

The air is thick with fog this morning, and smells of elderberry, like Hershel's tea. I glance at the wing mirror. Rick watches me from the passenger seat in front. I tilt my head away, so he can't see me.

"Oliver?"

I squint, then relax. "Yeah."

He groans.

“What?” I ask.

"You need me to spell it out for you?"

I sigh. “I’m... sorry I pushed you.”

Rick shakes his head, but doesn’t say anything else.

_I was broken in a million little pieces_   
_When I saw enough to realize, you didn't care for me_   
_It's all over, it's all over, my heart echoed_   
_Every minute that you cry for her is wasted, don't you know?_

_It's all over, it's all over, so forget her_   
_Stop your cryin', turn around and let her go_   
_let her go, boy, let her go..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was It's All Over by Jonny Cash.
> 
> Oliver's got to sort out his morals or I'm gonna punch him.
> 
> Confession: casually only just realised I've been spelling "laid" like "led" for the majority of everything I've posted online so far. Also, very aware that I've been using the word "oracle" instead of "orifice" even though the two words mean very different things. I.e. Orifice doesn't eyes, like I thought, but is instead more often used to describe the anus...
> 
> I don't know if anybody has made note of this, but Oliver actually doesn't know the very last thing Lori said to Carl. The Goodbye, love, bit. Carl never told him that part. (this becomes relevant-ish later rip).
> 
> Happy reading.


	105. Season 6 ~ East, Part 2: THE END IS NIGH

_Why does the sun go on shining?_   
_Why does the sea rush to shore?_   
_Don’t they know it’s the end of the world?_   
_‘Cause you don’t love me anymore._

_Why do the birds go on singing?_   
_Why do the stars glow above?_   
_Don’t they know it’s the end of the world?_   
_It ended when I lost your love..._

Morgan still wears his wedding ring, like Rick used to; since now he keeps it in a small glass bowl on his dresser.

"You didn't have to come."

Rick looks over.

"We have to try,” he replies. “Even if it's a long shot. Even if it's dangerous. Tire tracks pointed east."

"The Saviors' compound that you and the group..." Morgan stops, starts again. "—that you went to, that was west. Seems like she went east.”

"You don't even know her," Rick says.

"Oh, I got to," Morgan says — I frown at him and he catches me in the mirror, "a little."

"Why are you doing this?" Rick asks him.

"What I believe... I'm not right. There is no right. There's just the wrong that doesn't pull you down."

"It hasn't pulled me down."

"I think it will," Morgan replies. "'Cause I know you."

Rick groans, watching the pastures and the trees and the fog as we drive on along a curved road. At some point, Morgan gestures to something ahead.

"There," he says.

"I see it.”

A neglected, black, pick-up truck sprouts in the road, and as we get closer, I see several bodies scattered nearby. Morgan parks. I'm told to stay in the car while they take a look, but I still wind down the window so I can listen.

"That's her car."

"You see her?"

"No."

Suddenly, Rick finds someone living and pulls them up by their collar. I can’t hear much, but by the looks, he’s dead before they get much out of him. Rick sticks his knife through his head and crouches there, blood pooling around his boots. A hawk soars overhead, squawking.

"Saviors were getting weapons from the Hilltop's blacksmith. These men were Saviors."

"There's blood here. She could've been hit.”

Morgan is heading back.

"I'm proud of her," Rick tells him.

"How's that?"

"She took four of them down. That woman, she's a force of nature."

"She left because she can't anymore. That's what her letter said."

"She could because she had to. Sometimes you have to."

"There's more blood, opposite these men that leads into the field," Morgan tells him. "It's a trail. Could be Carol's. She could still be alive. She's not here."

"Most of their guns are gone," Rick says, checking his ammo. "She might've taken them."

"Those, too."

"Or she could've died here, even if she isn't here."

"Trail goes this way," Morgan suggests, pointing off to a large pasture. It goes east. In the distance is fog and a few houses.

"They were close to Alexandria," Rick says. "There's even more of them than we thought." He waves me over and I grab my things and get out of the car, and together we push through the long grass through the pasture, east.

“We didn’t end it,” I say.

"No," Morgan replies. "You started something."

Rick looks at him, then he turns his head up to the sky, as if he's making a small prayer.

We walk on for miles, following the trail of sporadic blood stands. I hug myself, shivering as a hard, frozen wind cuts through the fields. In another pasture, we find a large blood stain and a lot of flattened grass.

"It's not much," Morgan says, "but if it's Carol's, then she's been bleeding for a while."

We keep walking, climbing through a broken fence with a damp, bloody handprint on it, following the trail down a grass slope and past an old rusty sheep trailer.

"So, you out here because Carol is your friend?" Morgan asks.

"We're out here 'cause she's family," Rick answers.

"I've talked to people back there," Morgan tells him. "I found out about what happened at the prison. How you sent her away. She killed two of your people, right? Burned their bodies. What if that had happened today? Would you kill her?"

"If it happened today, I'd thank her," Rick answers. "Or I would've killed them myself. She was right to do it. They were sick, spreading a disease. Same disease that killed Oliver’s brother, and ten or twenty other people.”

"Yeah, but this was back then," Morgan tells us. "And you didn't kill her. You sent her away, Rick, and she came back. And she came back and she saved all y'all. People can come back, Rick."

* * *

 

Finally, we come out of a small grove of trees to a large farmland; grass so tall and pale it looks more like hay — the cloud in the sky is making a slow exit east for what looks like a good sunrise.

There’s a figure, stumbling through the grass.

“No...”

I run for her, calling out, and as she turns to me I see the gaping slice across her throat and I leap back. It’s not her. Rick and Morgan are yelling and I push the walker down and put my knife through its eyeball.

"It's not her," Rick says, breathless and too relieved to reprimand me.

Morgan takes a closer look.

"She couldn't have been dead more than a day," he says.

Something catches my eye up at the farm yard ahead; a gate is closing and a shadow is falling. The others’ see it too, and draw their weapons. We go up. A dead walker is laying by the gate opposite this one and several others are strewn about inside the yard also. The dirt-ground is scuffed, as if there was a struggle here recently.

A tall walker shambles ahead, though it's not coming for us — a man rushes around the hay barn and drives his spear through its face with a grunt. I aim at him. He’s... wearing armour.

"Hey!" Rick barks.

The stranger jumps three feet in the air.

"Whoa, _whoa_!" He's gone, scurrying back behind the large rickety barn wall, leaving his spear in the walker’s head. "It's okay! I'm not trouble. I don't want any trouble!"

"Come out, drop your weapons," Rick orders.

"I can't do that."

We edge closer.

"The wasted are too close! I'm just looking for my _horse._ Have you seen him?"

"No," Morgan answers. "We're looking for our friend. Have you seen her?"

No answer.

"Have you seen her!?" Rick bellows.

"They're coming! Just go! Just go!"

The herd he’s talking about is small. They crowd where his voice is coming from and he has to stumble out into the field, fast — lining up a shot is hard with so many dead-heads in the way.

"Stop!"

Rick fires his gun, but misses because Morgan shoves him, and then the herd of seven come for us. The fight is difficult but at least it doesn’t last very long, and then the three of us are catching our breath, drenched in blood. Rick and Morgan glare at each other. Then Rick marches towards the barn.

"Rick,” Morgan calls out, “we didn't know who he was!"

Ignoring him, Rick examines the spear. Blood drips down the handle.

"Yeah, it's one of the Hilltop's,” he says, “like the one on the road. Maybe he's one of them. Maybe he's looking for Carol, too."

"Maybe the man is just looking for a _horse_ ," Morgan argues. "Maybe he is from Hilltop. Maybe he's from somewhere else."

"I don't take chances... anymore."

Morgan walks east, where the stranger left, and then he turns to face us, his back to the sunrise with pink and orange swirls pooling out around his silhouette like a painting. He looks me in the eye, and then he looks at Rick.

"Those people, the Wolves, after they attacked I found one of them," he confesses. "He had attacked me on the road before, when I was trying to find you. And I stopped him. But I let him live. And then he was there in Alexandria after the attack, hiding in one of the brownstones so I stopped him again. I knocked him out and I could have _killed_ him... but all life is precious."

_Blah blah blah..._

Rick, too, looks bored. Sweat makes letters in his curly hair against his forehead, and the scar across his nose shines purple in the cold.

"I put him in the cell of the brownstone basement," Morgan says. "'Cause I knew he could change. We _all_ can change—”

"You had one of them alive _in the community_?!"

"Oh yeah,” Morgan answers. “And when the walls came down and the walkers broke in, Carol found out. We fought and that man escaped, and Denise. She had come to the cell to try and help him and he... took her hostage. And then she and that Wolf, they got _swarmed,_ and that man, that _killer,_ he _saved_ her _life_. And then Denise was there to save Carl. It..." Morgan grimaces. “It's all a circle. Everything gets a return."

Rick and I remain silent. I think about how, for the last two years, I wandered across seven states, lost my family, and found another... all to come right back again, like I’m some dog chasing its own tail.

Morgan keeps talking.

"But the fact is the fact. I did what I did. I let him live... You go home, both of you. Take the car. You're needed back there... You shouldn't be out here taking any more chances."

"I'm not going without her—"

“Oliver...”

"Rick," I say back. "She's still out here. We can't just—"

"I will find your momma, boy," Morgan tells me, completely serious. "I will."

I glare at the ground. Morgan nods.

Another small prayer is taken up through the clouds:

_Let them find home,  
amen._

"You both go," Morgan tells us again.

Rick nods, and as Morgan turns towards the rising sun, away from us, says, "You're coming back."

"Yeah," Morgan answers. "But if I don't, don't come lookin'."

"Take it," Rick suggests, presenting a handgun.

"No, I—"

Rick twists it around, holding it up. "Take it..."

Morgan accepts it.

"Morgan?" Rick asks before he goes. "Michonne did steal that protein bar."

Morgan laughs. "Oh, _I_ know...”

Rick turns and walks away.

“Morgan,” I say, “she’s not my mom...”

He thinks about this, and then he nods and says, “She is...” and I watch him go, frowning, until Rick calls me to hurry and we make our way west to the car.

"Can I drive?" I ask along the way.

Rick smiles.

“Oh, come on,” I complain, “why not?”

"I will be an _old man_ by the time I let you drive me anywhere."

My sigh is long and slow. Rick squeezes my shoulder and shakes his head.

“C’mon.”

* * *

 

Back at Alexandria, Abraham is waiting for us with a cigar in his mouth and a rifle under his arm.

“Morgan's still out there looking,” Rick tells him. “Is Michonne here?”

“She's still out there, too.”

It’s been hours. Rick and Abraham look out through the fence. Rick looks shaken, pinching his nose and wiping his eyes.

“You afraid to go back to it?” Abraham asks. “Let somebody close?”

“Yeah,” Rick answers. “Yeah...”

“Mm,” Abraham concurs. “Me, too.”

I get this bad feeling in my gut.

“But now I think I'm that much more ready to tear the world a brand-new asshole,” Abraham adds. “Any second now... _Any_ second.”

* * *

 

I did as I was told and brought home all the pairs of glasses in my house from Lorton. My father’s don’t help but Patrick’s do. I sit in my room while one of Aiden’s old _RunMixes_ plays from my stereo, an album he’d named: _THE END IS NIGH_ which is just a bunch of songs about the apocalypse.

At some point, someone comes into the house. I was hurting myself and I wasn’t expecting anybody to come over, so I don’t have much time to pull down my sleeves and wait for the pain to go away before Carl is entering my bedroom.

“Hey.”

I smile at him, busying myself at my desk with my book.

“I heard what happened,” he says, taking a seat at on my desk. “Dad just told me.”

“It’s fine,” I say. “They’ll come back.”

He nods. “Yeah, they will.”

It’s quiet for a moment.

He points. “Like your glasses.”

I pull them off. “Oh. Yeah. Thanks. They’re Patrick’s.”

He smiles.

I must still look in pain because he looks me up and down, smile fading. “You doin' okay?”

“Yeah, man. Why?”

“Well... just, after today... you can talk about it, if you want.”

My eyes start to water.

“Oliver?”

“Sorry... I... You just...”

“What?”

“You’re just so clear right now.”

He laughs and hugs me. I hug him back, forcing back more tears, and then finally I pull away, shaking my head.

“You were right, that day you got shot...”

“I... I don’t remember a lot.”

“You said it doesn't help, saying goodbye,” I say. “That it doesn't change anything. That it always hurts. And it does.”

“Oliver...”

I shake my head. I swallow. And I say, “I... I think we should stop...” I have to hold my breath for a second. “I just...”

“You just what?”

I look at him.

His eye is wet, suddenly.

“I don’t think we should do this?” I say, feeling sick. “I... I shouldn’t have kissed you yesterday. I wasn’t thinking. I got carried away. I’m just...”

“You’re afraid.”

I feel my face wrinkle into a grimace.

“You are,” he insists, wiping his face. He shakes his head and gets up.

“Carl—”

“Forget it,” he says, leaving. “See you around, Oliver.”

_I wake up in the morning and I wonder_   
_Why everything’s the same as it was_   
_I can’t understand, no, I can’t understand_   
_How life goes on the way it does_

_Why does my heart go on beating?_   
_Why do these eyes of mine cry?_   
_Don’t they know it’s the end of the world?_   
_It ended when you said goodbye..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was End of the Wold by Skeeter Davis.
> 
> I've been reading a lot of I'll Give You the Sun – by Jandy Nelson, and Bite – by K.S. Merbeth. SHE ANSWERED MY ASK ON TUMBLR.
> 
> Happy reading.


	106. Season 6 ~ East, Part 3: The Guinea Pig

I sit at the gazebo alone, watching the late morning cloud roll across Virginia and waiting for Carol and Morgan to return. When it reaches hour four, Maggie comes by.

“Hey,” she says. “Was just looking for Enid. Got this off the line, Glenn must’ve thought it was his.” It’s my hoodie; she’s sewn a tear up.

I wait for her to bring up how I punched her husband in the throat but he must not’ve told her, so I say, “Thanks.”

“So, you seen Enid around?”

I shake my head.

Scott, passing by, notices us and calls out from the street. “You want these bins on the east wall or the south?”

“That one to the south, thanks, and—”

“Hide some around. Got it, boss.”

Maggie smiles. “Thank you. Oh, if you see Enid, could you tell her I’m looking for her?”

“Sure!”

He leaves and Maggie turns back to me. “You busy?”

“Well... I was... no. Not busy.”

“Can you help me with something?”

Several minutes later, I’m sitting inside Maggie’s kitchen being asked a lot of questions about my hair. I don’t offer much help:—“If it’s out of my eyes, I don’t care what it looks like.”

Maggie makes coffee while we wait for Enid to arrive. I tell her about where Morgan, Rick and I went looking for Carol this morning because she asks, and soon the conversation shifts to the jar sitting open on the kitchen counter.

“Pickles?”

“ _M-hm!_ ” She takes one, cupping a hand under her chin while she chomps down on it. “Cravings... Pihhles...” She swallows. “And pencils.”

“Pencils?”

“Not to eat,” she says, “but I keep chewing through nubs. Want some? Pickles, I mean.”

I shake my head.

“Here,” she says, handing me a coffee mug instead. “Ran out of sugar — had to use coco powder instead.”

Grateful, I take the mug — it’s warm against my stump and hand. Maggie sit across from me on the couch, eating her pickles and sipping her coffee.

I think of Morgan and Carol, and Daryl and Glenn and Rosita and Michonne and Sasha. I get another head ache, so I put Patricks glasses on and keep sipping my coffee, thinking that what goes into the boiling water might not even matter at all, not the coffee or the carrot or the egg. Not the salt or the sugar — what matters is who comes along to drink it.

Maggie says something.

“What?” I say.

She watches me. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” I say.

Maggie gets up and steps over and begins to play with my hair.

“Enid took my shift for me earlier,” she says. “Yeah, I didn’t see it coming either. Think I'm finally getting through to her.”

Gently, she strokes under my ear, and I lean into it. I stop and turn to face her. “Sorry for being rude, earlier.”

She smiles at me. “Carol's gonna be okay. They all will.”

I drink the rest of my coffee, then stand up.

“I’m gonna look for Enid,” I say. “Back in a bit.”

“Keep your gun on you,” she says.

“Stay ready for a fight,” I say back.

“Like Rick said.”

* * *

 

I find Enid quickly, walking along the brownstone apartments’ street. When she sees me she runs and hugs me. “Did you find her? I was so worried about you.”

“Morgan’s still out there looking.”

She pulls away and looks at me. I don’t know what I look like but bet it’s something miserable.

“You’re wearing glasses.”

“Yeah.”

“They’re nice.”

“Thanks. Maggie’s looking for you.”

“I know. Scott said. I was on my way over. Come on.”

On our way past the brownstone apartments, I remember what Morgan said about building a prison cell inside. Enid doesn’t believe me when I tell her, and to be honest, neither do I, so we take a look through the windows. It’s there, alright. Brick walls, an iron welded gate and steel bars over the windows.

“Whoa...” Enid whispers, pressing her face to the glass. Then she looks at me, this look on her face like she wants to say something, but instead she says nothing and reaches into her breast pocket, presenting two dragonfly wings on her open palm.

“Wh... What are they?” I whisper — whispering because it feels necessary.

“My wings,” she says, like it’s obvious.

“Oh...”

I blink at them. Rainbows glisten in their fragile, glassy surfaces — some parts damaged and broken. I blink at her.

“How do we put them back on?” I ask.

Enid smiles.

“We don’t, sorry.”

I must look upset because she tells me I don’t need to be sad for her. She says, “Just because they’re gone, it doesn’t mean I still can’t fly...”

I wipe my eyes, feeling ridiculous. “Yeah. I... I just wish you had them back.”

“Yeah.”

I sniff and clear my throat. “What do we do with them?”

Enid tilts her hand — I rush to catch one of the wings as it tumbles from her palm, fluttering a moment before landing in mine. I protect it from the breeze with my inner elbow and hold up the wing in front of hers, our fingertips touching.

“Make a wish, okay?” she whispers.

“Okay...”

We shut our eyes and on the count of three blow onto our palms. I feel the cool air around my face and neck and beanie hat. I open my eyes again — Enid’s are still shut and her eyebrows are furrowed. The pixie wings were gone.

 _Is this what happens when a faery loses their wings?_ I wonder. _They wish with them instead of fly with them?_

She looks at me. “What was your wish?”

I don’t tell her because I hadn’t made one. I wanted her to have my wish.

“What was yours?” I ask her.

She shrugs. “I gave it to you.”

* * *

 

At Maggie’s, Enid is asked to cut Maggie’s hair or her. She’s nervous, so she asked if I can be a guinea pig, so I sit in the chair in the living area and let Maggie and Enid consult each other over what to do.

Finally, Maggie gets the scissors.

Enid does her best, cutting it short enough that I can feel a breeze on the back of my head, and before long she’s finished and stepping back. Maggie grins from the armchair across the room.

 _Don’t look like Dad,_ I pray. _Please, don’t look like Dad...  
amen._

I’m handed the blue hand-mirror, and a very scarred, bruised Patrick peers back at me. I put the mirror down and inhale.

“I left some on top,” Enid says, playing with it, “so you can style it.”

I find this funny but thank her again for it anyway.

Maggie next. When it’s finished, it’s longer than mine, but still short enough it barely touches her cheeks. Maggie picks up the mirror and watches her reflection.

“I like it,” Enid says. “But why?”

Maggie brushes a lock of hair behind her ear. She takes a deep breath. “I have to keep going,” she answers. “And I don't want anything gettin' in my way.”

Enid looks up at me across the room and smiles. I mouth, “Thank you,” to her, thinking that I haven’t ever seen her look so proud of herself.

Then Maggie tips forward, dipping her head.

“Man, did I go too short?” Enid stutters. “I... I only used to cut Nell's and my dad's.”

“No, it's not that,” Maggie says, breathless. She holds her stomach.

“Maggie?”

Suddenly, she cries out and collapses from her seat.

“Maggie... Maggie!”

She’s screaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, Rolochan, for the prompt to get his hair cut.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	107. Season 6 ~ Last Day on Earth, Part 1: Bye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Centered bits are Carl’s pov, normal bits are Oliver.

“Glenn's still not back. I need to be there for Maggie.”

“I said _no,_ Enid!”

“Carl—”

“Look, you were _wrong_ before. This place isn't too big to protect. You and Oliver need to stay and help protect this place.”

“Are you kidding me? Oliver's not gonna let you go without him and I’m not about to either. This place is ready. Most of us have been trained — you know that. If you were worried about an attack you wouldn't be leaving.”

“Do you know how far the Hilltop is? D'you know what could happen? The Saviors are _out there_. You know what they did to Denise. What they _tried_ to do to Oliver, and Maggie and Carol. To Daryl. To Rosita. To Eugene. That's not happening to you. Alright? I'm not gonna let it.”

* * *

 

Sitting in the back of the RV, I grip Maggie’s hand while the others get stocked for the journey to Hilltop.

“She's getting worse.”

Someone throws a red duffel inside.

“Good call on the transport.”

“I figured she'd be more comfortable.”

“You got room for more?” Abraham asks. “They're out there, Rick, so I'm gonna be there with you. We are.”

“Package deal,” Sasha adds.

“What she said,” Eugene thirds, and they all get to helping load up.

“Hey, Mags,” Sasha says, coming in and kneeling beside me. “You and that little one'll be _fine._ Promise you.” She kisses her forehead, then leaves to sit in the passenger seat beside Abraham. He rubs her leg and gives her a nod.

Rick tells me to go help load up. As I pass him, he pats my hip and says, “It’ll be okay.”

* * *

 

“You wanna run into them, right? The Saviors? You _hope_ they show up... Jesus, Carl! This is about getting Maggie to a _doctor_! Not about — _Screw you,_ I'm going!”

“Enid, _stop_! Just... wait.”

“Move.”

“Alright... Alright... Grab some pistols from the closet. But _hurry._ We gotta go now.”

“Okay...”

“Sorry.”

“What? Wait... Did you... Did you lock the door? Carl! Dammit... Carl! _Carl..._ What happens if you don't come back? Like Nell? _Jesus_ , Carl! How am I supposed to live with that again? What the hell am I supposed to do?”

“Just survive somehow...”

* * *

 

Rick and Gabriel are talking. Aaron’s coming along now, too. Carl’s heading over from the armoury with a duffel bag full of guns, wearing his hat. He glances at me under it, then puts the guns in the RV and comes back out just as I'm heading in.

“Can you come with me?”

Frowning, I nod and follow him across the street.

“Boys,” Rick calls out. “Where you going?”

“Back in a sec, just picking up some stuff.”

“Hurry.”

He leads the way to his house, telling me he’s looking for his Beretta.

“Why do you need me to help you look?” I ask. “And how did you manage to lose your own gun?”

“Just help, please.” We look around the living room. At some point, he asks me, “Do you think we'll come across the Saviors?”

“I hope not.”

Carl sighs.

I look at him. He looks miserable. I figure it’s not a surprise, after everything I said to him.

“What do you think Negan is like?” he asks.

I shrug. “I mean, they’re all Negan, so... what if he doesn’t even exist?”

“Real or not,” he says, “they’re biting off more than they can chew. We'll finish them. All of them. They’re pretty much dead already.”

He’s frowning.

“Keep looking, man,” I whisper.

He snaps out of it and points into the utility room. “You check in there. I’ll check the kitchen.”

I check every cupboard. Carl looks in here, too.

“I can’t see anything—”

The utility room door shuts and something scuffs against it from the other side. I step over — the handle twists but the door jams. I push again, harder. It doesn't budge.

“Carl?”

No answer.

“Dude... you locked me in.”

I go to the backdoor but it’s locked, too. No key. I get this bad feeling I get when I stay in utility rooms too long.

“Hey. Let me out, man...”

I can see his shadow under the door, shuffling.

“I... I can’t stay in here.”

“I'm sorry.”

And I start shouting. I don’t know what I say but I know it’s loud. I’m hitting the door, getting angry, cursing him, and he tells me he’s sorry and that he has to do this and I tell him, “I hate you!”

“I gotta go.”

“No!”

“Bye.”

* * *

“Where’s Oliver?”

“Staying.”

“Enid?”

“Her, too. Figured it was better to keep numbers here.”

“Good. Let’s get on the road.”

“Yep.”

...

“We can make a deal, stranger... right here, right now.”

“That's right, we can. Why don’t you park your RV and give us all your stuff. We'll probably have to kill one o' you — that's just the way it is, but then we can start movin' forward on business. All you have to do is listen.”

“ _Yeah..._ That deal's not gonna work for us. Fact is, I was about to ask for all o' _your_ stuff, only I'm thinkin' I don't have to kill any of you. Any _more_ of you.”

“Sorry, my deal is the only deal. We don't negotiate.”

“Me and my people are leaving. We got places to get to.”

“Okay, friend! Plenty of ways to get to where you're going...”

“You wanna make today your last day on Earth?”

“No. But that is a good thing to bring up. Think about it. What if it's the last day on Earth for you? For someone you love? What if that's true? Maybe you should be extra nice to those people in that RV, 'cause you never know... Just like that... Be kind to each other. Like you said — like it was your last day on Earth.”

“You do the same...”

* * *

 

Again, I take a running start towards the living room and I bounce off the door, hitting the ground with a yelp. I sit up, hissing through my teeth, and try again, and again, and again, until I’m lying in a heap on the floor, in too much pain to keep going. I’m just wedging the chair firmer if I keep on like this. I could break the window in the backdoor, but there’s nothing in here to use except my fist, plus it’s too small to fit through.

Sitting up, I hold my head and groan through my teeth until an idea comes to me, then I crouch at the door and wiggle my finger through the thin gap under it. Grunting, I stoop down low on my elbows and knees and push my cheek against the floor to see under — two chair legs are lodged against the floor opposite me. If I find something long enough to dislodge them, the door should give.

I search around for something thin enough and strong enough to fit through the gap. Lizzie’s knife is thin enough, but barely reaches past the width of the door. Nothing inside cupboards. There’s a fold-up clothes rack, though, stacked neatly in the gap between the washing machine and the counter. With effort, I break four of the thin metal rods away from it with a few hard kicks, then, at the door again, I flatten myself to the floor and order them together in a neat row, sticking them through the gap. They are long enough, but so thin and finicky that it’s hard to get a good grip. I hit the end of them with the butt of Lizzie’s knife — once, twice, dislodging one chair leg each a little at a time, slipping and slipping until, finally, the chair tips forward under the handle, and all four legs clatter and wobble to the floor. Shutting my mouth, I stumble to my feet, sweating as I touch the handle, twist, and the door opens.

Outside, the RV is long gone. I know it’s useless to go after them.

The sky is grey, like ash.

I sigh.

“Okay, Carol.”

I go to my room and grab everything I need, and even some things I don’t need like Tara’s yoyo and Nell’s notebook, and my parents’ wedding rings and Nonno’s deer carving he made me; the latter things which I brought from Lorton. Next, I go to the pantry, silently, and steal a small amount of food. I already have ammo and my gun and knife, so I skip going to the armoury and I leave through the garage.

Making sure nobody is around, I head for the wall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	108. Season 6 ~ Last Day on Earth, Part 2: Whoohoo

_If storms are breaking over great escapes_   
_Boy, we’ll find how to make it with the rain_   
_This rage will lead us through the burning plains_   
_No matter what they say, we’re heroes,_   
_Boy, we’ll get to break out_

_Now we’re finally standing up to the sky_   
_Look at me, boy, what is fate to say_   
_How things are gonna turn out now?_

 “How do you think they knew we would be there?”

“I don’t know. It looked like they’d been watching us... waiting.”

“Do you think they’ll go home?”

“If they do, they’re ready.”

“Aaron, why didn't you stay back and help guard the place?”

“I owe her... Why did you come?”

“I owe _them_.”

“Hey. Guys. You got a route yet?”

“Yeah.”

“Let's go...”

...

“Bitch nuts...”

“How did they know we’d come this way? How did they get here first?”

“I don’t know... It looks like more of them.”

“We make our stand?”

“Yeah, we end it.”

“No, not now.”

“Dad—"

“They've been waiting. They're ready. With one of us behind the wheel, that’s... five on sixteen. We're gonna play it our way, how we want it. Right?”

“Right.”

“Alright, turn us around, Abraham... go slow.”

* * *

 

If there’s mercy for the lost and vengeance for the plunderers, then what is there for the morally ambiguous?

I take the same route as before, driving in Aaron and Eric’s astoundingly ugly car right through the Saviour’s graveyard. Carol’s neglected car is still there, a blur in my eye as I speed by. The sun is hidden behind clouds and everywhere looks grey and dismal and lonely. The gas meter is flashing. I don’t have much time — so I veer off of the road and head straight through the countryside, following the way Morgan, Rick and I walked.

Seatbelt on, I scream as the car rattles east through the pasture, crashing through the brittle fence. The wing mirror flies away with a _crack!_ and laughing at the top of my lungs, I push my foot flat against the gas. “ _WHOOHOO!_ ” I swerve around a rotten hay bale, finding the field with the barn much faster than I had while walking. There’s a sudden dip downhill and my stomach flips. I scream again, shaking the steering wheel — swerving around a sudden small cluster of walkers that wonder out around the sheep trailer. I hit one and it splatters over the window screen, startling me enough that I screech, and then I laugh.

“Aw, _shit,_ you messed up my view!”

Its head snaps on the hood, then rolls off. I laugh, fiddling with buttons for the wind screen wipers. I find it, and — hay bale.

“Ahhh!”

Swerve around it, not laughing or screaming now. The farmyard is ahead. I can see it on the top of the hill, and I aim for the open gate, windscreen wipers working fast and loud and useless, smudging rotten blood like paint. Then something weird happens. I notice a man stood off by the open gate. Walker, I think at first, except he stops and turns around and puts his hand up over his eyes to squint at the car.

“ _SHIT!_ ”

I swerve to avoid him, and in all of this, the one thing I do not think to do is slow down, because then there is a bump and a _crunch!_ and I swerve again and something smashes and I’m ploughing through another fence, heading for something big and solid and unavoidable.

“ _AAHHHH!_ ”

And I crash right into it.

_Can’t you see that we’re dead until we wake up?_   
_All your dreams are about to happen how_   
_We are racing to the break of dawn..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was The Great Escape by Woodkid.
> 
> This was fun.
> 
> The phrase 'morally ambiguous with reckless abandon' was created by the amazing TheDarkerSide123. Thank you for letting me use it.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	109. Season 6 ~ Last Day on Earth, Part 3: You Are Alive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the support I've been getting on here by the way. Figure I probably don't say that enough. You all deserve reverse-Lucille. Her amount of brutality but in thank you's.

“How are we on gas?”

“Half a tank. Pulled some more cans before we left.”

“Those weren't the same men who blocked the road the first time.”

“Same outfit, different soldiers. They got numbers.”

“We keep driving. We get her there.”

“We will.”

“If we have to shove each and every one of them up their own asses.”

“Oh... shit. What is that?”

“Walker’s...”

“They chained them across the road?!”

“We can't go through it. Can't risk the RV. You stay behind the wheel, just in case. We'll clear it.”

“Puttin' together a red rover like that takes people. A lot of'm.”

“Come on, let's do this.”

“Look... on that one... that's Michonne's waistcoat.”

“Those, there... Daryl's crossbow bolts...”

“Hurry. They’re coming.”

“Get back to the RV!”

“Start it up! Go!”

* * *

 

When I come to, the sun has moved west across the sky and a faery is whistling in my ear. I groan against the glove box, the rest of my body bent and stiff at an awkward angle. I twist around and sit up, ears still ringing.

“ _Ugh_...”

Feeling ill, I press my forehead to the cool glass of the window and shut my eyes. I’m bleeding. There’s a ticking noise, coming from the car’s flashing _Check Engine_ light on the dashboard, when I look. I turn my head, and through the window, see several walkers snarling and biting at my face.

“ _Ehh_!”

I startle and jerk back, hitting my head on something hard — a large metal rod, stuck through the window-screen, torn through the airbag, and lodged into my headrest. It must’ve happened in the collusion. I don’t believe I’m not dead so I look around for my body, but it’s still attached to me, so I try to calm down.

I remember the man and look for him, but he’s long gone by now. Just the walkers and my car, lodged into the side of the barn like it’s a part of it. I groan again and see the whiplash across my arm and hip and neck, but I’m still in one piece. My backpack’s still here — thrown to the floor in the crash.

I reach over and grab it, but something grabs me. I pull back and watch the walker claw at me through the broken window, jagged edges slicing its chest. It tears my beanie in its mouth.

“ _No!_ ”

The other walkers are still behind me, but not for long if I stay here. The glass rattles and creaks. Picking my moment, I stab the corpse through the eyeball with my knife. Using my feet, I open the door and kick it door open, then clamber out and hit the ground with a large dust cloud.

“Ouch.”

Catching my breath and feeling ill, I pick up my knife. I’ve left my backpack in the car. And then I’m laughing. Belly laughing. Laughing so hard I think I’ll disappear in laughter. Growling brings me out of it, though, and I have enough time to step back away from them.

Six of them, I count, and I take a steep breath and twist my knife around in my hand, bracing myself.

“Alright, fuckers,” I say, “who’s first?”

It’s a big man with missing teeth and an eyeball hanging out. I sink my knife through his temple and jump back as he falls flat on his face. Something inside of him pops loudly, and the stench is vile enough I plug my nose.

“Next?”

A child with big black eyes and pigtails. She’s missing an ear, part of her scalp, and a whole meaty section on the back of her leg. I pull her around and cut her brainstem in two. Another walker lunges but I jump back.

“That all you got!?” I shout at them, blood boiling. “Get your asses moving, I haven’t got all day!”

As requested, two of them take a lunge at me in unison. I dodge one and throw myself into the second’s chest, knocking him to the dusty ground like a dance move. I drive my knife into his forehead. It’s hard to pull my knife out. I have to leave it and draw my Glock, swinging around to face the monsters. A skull shatters off in chunks and as the next walker lunges, I put a bullet up through its chin and it falls at my boots.

One left.

I stand there, gun up, wanting her close, and when her mouth is wide and snarling and almost swallowing the barrel of my gun whole, I pull the trigger — _click._

My shoulders are grabbed and I’m trampled to the dirt. I curse and grunt and the walker screeches in my face. I watch her, holding her back. She’s not very big or strong, and she looks sad; some people do... even when they’re dead.

I flinch, then roll us over with a knee on either side of her ribcage and an arm across her throat, squashing her head back so all her growls are strangled. Her hands flail and grab at me but I shuffle them away and look for something to kill her with — a small pen tucked inside her breast pocket. I grab it quickly, and with a wet _crunch!_ and _pop!_ It’s through her eyeball and she’s dead.

Sitting back, I check myself for scratches, then get off her and throw up into the dirt, splashing some in her hair on accident.

“Sorry, lady...” I wipe my mouth and get my backpack, take my inhaler, then look around. The farm is empty now, and silent. The sun is setting. I put my empty Glock away and get go back to the car. It doesn’t start up again. Just billows out angry black smoke from the hood.

I sigh, wanting my hat. I look at the walkers again and tell them, “I win,” and then I get out of the car. With a permeant marker from the glove box, I write into the side of the rusty, metal, car door, the words:

_Got my hat.  
Didn’t get me._

I stand back from it, nod, then grab my things and the spear that the other guy left, then get walking.

* * *

 

East. That’s the way Morgan went. That’s the way Carol kept going. _If I was a possum, where would I play dead?_

I’m no experienced tracker but I picked up some tricks from Daryl. Still, after long, I realise to my disappointment that I’ve been following the tracks of something much larger and heavier than Morgan or Carol, because in a muddy patch leading out of a gate I see very clear hoof-prints. Recent, too.

_Maybe it’s that guy’s horse..._

With nothing else to go on, I head into the pasture and through a small grove, finding nothing but a sign that reads:

_YOU_   
_ARE_   
_ALIVE_

I frown at it and keep going, following the tracks to a small town I don’t know the name of. I lose the tracks on the gravel but keep walking through the town anyway, keeping an eye out for anything. Finally, I stop at a library; a brick building with three floors and a tall metal fence outside.

I head over because I like libraries, and my feet are tired, and I’m thirsty and hungry and it’s getting dark. Except I stop when I see several bodies laying outside in a bloody pile, and a pale, ashen-red saddled horse hitched outside the building. I’m going to leave, find somewhere to lay low, but I can see Morgan’s coat folded next to the horse on a chair, and his gloves left neatly on the steps.

I stand there, terrified.

The horse watches me, blinking and huffing.

Spear in hand again, I back away from the gate and head along the fence to scope the place out. Something rattles. It doesn’t sound alive. I keep going, staying quiet. And then I see him. I fasten my eye upon the tall, dark-skinned man and watch him wonder purposefully across the recess yard, see his gaze train up at the hung corpse above, see his careful hands grip and pull, climb the thin tower of scaffolding, perch at its top a moment, and then... he kills it _,_ and with one clean slice through the rope tied around its throat the corpse falls thirty feet towards the driveway, making a wet _splat!_ as it hits the asphalt.

I blink, and Morgan Jones climbs down from the scaffolding. On his way back towards the library, he stops abruptly and watches me.

“Oliver.”

“Hello.”

“What happened here—”

“Boy, you got a _whole_ lot of explaining to do...”

“Is that your horse?”

“That your spear?”

“No. Found it.”

“Me, too.”

“It’s a nice horse.”

“He bites.”

“Oh.”

Morgan stares at me, then shakes his head and rubs his mouth.

I give him a wan smile. “It's good to see you, sir.”

“You, too.”

I squint at him. “Did... you find her?”

“Come inside, Oliver.”

* * *

 

The library is messy and lived in. Damp clothes are still hung up and drying, and breakfast bowls are left unfinished. The powdered milk and cereal are still fresh and runny. There’s blood everywhere.

“We think the Saviors came here first,” Morgan tells me.

“We?”

“Oh yeah... Through here.”

There are big signs over doors that read 'Fiction' and 'Horror' and 'Fantasy' and 'Romance'. Morgan turns into a room that says 'Mystery' overhead. Inside is some sheets and a small blood stain. I don't realise what's wrong until I look at him. His face falls and he marches into the fiction section.

“Carol? Carol!”

My heart sinks.

Morgan rushes outside and I follow down the stone steps, backpack on my shoulder.

“She's gone,” I tell him, “again.”

Morgan stands at the gate, pulling off the locks and letting it swing wide open. He looks around. I sit on the library steps and put the spear on the floor in front of me, and then Morgan is here, putting a hand on my arm to pull me up.

“No...”

He looks at me, forehead wrinkling. “You know how to ride a horse?”

“No.”

“Okay.” Morgan nods anyway, taking a deep determined breath. “Just sit behind me, hold on, and the rest you'll pick up along the way. Got that?”

I inhale. “Yes, sir.”

* * *

 

“What's that sound?”

“Undercarriage coulda caught a bullet. Or could be a transmission. It could be nothing.”

“They were firing at our feet. The blocked the road but they weren't trying to stop us. They _want_ us in this direction.”

“Barton Road takes us north, but they gotta know we wanna go north.”

“Meadows. Could take us east a piece, but we can get back on track on Mayhew.”

“We're down to a third of a tank — we could top off at the next stop. But no refills after that.”

“Alright.”

“She's burning up.”

“ _Rick..._ more of them.”

“Go back...”

“Where?”

“Just _go back_.”

* * *

 

“We're making good time.”

I don’t say anything, just cling on behind him, trying to keep balance.

We ride through town for a few minutes longer, until Morgan slows the horse down and stops across from a dead walker, old and dry, with Carol’s rosaries.

Morgan kicks the horse into a trop. “We gotta hurry.”

“They were bloody,” I gasp.

“She didn't have them before.”

“How do you know that?” I ask. “Maybe... Maybe she had them in her pocket.”

“I don’t know,” Morgan says, “but I got a bad feeling. She wasn’t bleeding like that when she left. I don’t think we’re the only ones lookin’ for her.”

We ride all the way to its outskirts — a gunshot startles us. The horse spooks and skitters sideways. “Woah...” Morgan coos, pulling the reins. “Woah, there...”

“She's in trouble!”

“Hold on!”

We gallop off. There’s another gunshot. Carol screams.

“You think you've suffered enough now?”

“No, probably not. Oh, God.”

We see her, lying on the ground while a man, the same one I saw before, walks away from her.

“What, are you done?” Carol yells after him, weeping. “Unless you kill me now, I'm not gonna die! You decide! The world doesn't decide! _You decide!_ You don't get to walk away and get what you want!”

He turns back, gun raised.

“Stop!” Morgan yells, his own gun up, safety off, hammer back. “Drop it. You can survive this. You can. Drop it. Please.”

“No—”

Morgan shoots him several times, and then he stops, his arm shuddering. We run for Carol. She’s bleeding bad and can hardly look as us.

“Please, just let me _go!_ ”

I can't say anything to her at all.

“It's not your time,” Morgan says, putting pressure on her wounds. “You are gonna come back from this.”

Carol shuts her eyes and sobs.

Something makes a noise behind us. I twist around and see another horse, dark bay and saddled, and man on its back and another man approaching us. It’s the armoured man from before.

“What happened here?”

“I found your horse,” Morgan explains. “Found our friend, too. She needs help.”

The man surveys us, checking back with his friend. Then looks at us, steps over, and offers a hand. “Then let's get you some help...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think that this was the first chapter in a while with a remotely positive ending.
> 
> I honestly didn't know if I could go through with killing the beanie hat. 
> 
> Also, "I fasten my eye upon the tall dark-skinned man and watch him wonder purposefully across the recess yard, see his gaze train up at the hung corpse above, see his careful hands grip and pull, climb the thin tower of scaffolding, perch at its top a moment, and then..." was meant to be a nod from Oliver's subconscious to the part in Tom and Huck that Carol read in Story Time a million years ago: "The children fastened their eye upon their bit of candle and watched it melt slowly and pitilessly away, saw the half inch of wick stand alone at last, saw the feeble flame rise and fall, climb the thin tower of smoke, linger at its top a moment, and then..."
> 
> Happy reading.


	110. Season 6 ~ Last Day on Earth, Part 4: Cat and Mouse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be honest, you don't even need to read the next two chapters if you saw the episodes. Nothing changes.

I'm beginning to realise what this is to the Saviors.

When I was a little kid, I remember watching a neighbour's cat play with a mouse in our driveway. The cat messed with the mouse until it was exhausted, and then the cat would stop and act like it wasn't interested, and the mouse would catch its breath and try to escape again, and the cat would start the process again. The cat killed it before I got there and I cried about it and my mom sat me down and told me about the suffragettes in the nineteen-hundreds, how they were arrested and taken to jail just because they wanted their right to vote. How, in jail, as protest to their cruel conditions, they would refuse to eat. Some were force-fed and beaten, and others were allowed to go home again to recover for a while, and these women would catch their breath, before to law came and got them again.

“People called it the cat and mouse act,” Mom said, “and it was terrible for them, and it lasted for a long time, but in the end the brave suffragettes kept holding out hope. They stayed strong, and then they won their right to vote.”

Tonight, the Saviors think we are the mice.

Our route is blocked again by a wall of burning timber, a man hangs from over the overpass, and there are big tire marks in the mud.

“You're treatin' your people good, right?” someone shouts from above. “Like it was your last day on Earth? Or maybe one of theirs? You better go! It's gonna get hot. You go get where you're going!”

“Go,” Dad is telling us. “Go!”

* * *

 

We park a while later in the dark and the cold, running out of time. There are only two more routes north from where we are. It’s like the Saviors are waiting for us at every turn.

“They're waitin' on this rust bucket,” Eugene says. “And they _don't_ know the moment-to-moment occupancy of said rust-bucket.”

After a discussion, we decide to go on foot, while Eugene drives the RV as a distraction. The forest is black enough we’re almost blind. Dad, Abraham and Sasha carry Maggie on a stretcher while I dispatch walkers and keep watch as we go, trying not to think about cats or mice.

Maggie’s skin is turning grey and sweat is soaking into her clothes and hair. A walker wonders across our path, part of a large tree branch balanced stuck through its chest, and with one clean lash, the top half of its skull severs off and flies across the forest.

“Relax,” Aaron whispers. “Just a few more miles, Maggie...”

Another walker — I shove it against a tree and stab it through the forehead.

“I heard what you told her,” I tell Dad at some point, “when we were leaving. We can do anything, 'cause we'll do anything we need to do. We have and we will... What happened to Denise — I'm not gonna let anybody die like that again.”

“Son...”

“What?”

A whistle — two notes; one high, one low. Shadows move around us. Lights come on in the distance through the trees.

“Go!” Dad shouts. “ _Go!_ ”

The whistling doesn't stop even as we rush through the forest, growing louder. We keep running until there’s a loud clank and a blinding light ahead. I shield my eyes and gasp, drowned out by the whistling. I see shapes and figures moving behind the headlights, people surrounding us in a large dirt clearing. Our RV is parked ahead, like a judging booth for a stage we didn't sign up to perform on — Eugene is kneeling in front of it, his eye swollen shut.

The whistling stops suddenly.

“Good!” the voice, belonging to a tall man with dark hair and a moustache, says. “You made it! Welcome to where you're going!”

He stops in front of us, his arms up like a basking animal.

“We'll take your weapons,” he says, gun raising to my face. “ _Now_...”

“We can talk about it—”

“We're done talking. Time to listen.”

As we’re stripped of our things, Dad watches me, trembling.

“Yours, right?” the moustache asks, and rested on his palm is my Beretta, pointing at my face. He leans close. “Yeah...” he says, and flicks the brim of my hat, “it's yours.”

I grit my teeth and he grins and turns to the rest.

“Okay! Let's get her down and get you all on your knees. Lots to cover!”

We’re all made to kneel. Abraham, Dad, Aaron and Sasha help Maggie. She clutches to Abraham. Eugene’s put beside me, blood running streaks down his face.

Dad looks at me again.

“Let's get the other ones,” moustache commands. “Right now. Dwight!”

“Yeah.”

“Chop chop!”

Dwight steps out of the crowd, armed with Daryl's crossbow. He goes to the back of a truck and swings the hatch open and Daryl, Michonne, Rosita and Glenn are made to get out and line up on their knees with the rest of us. They look like they've been through hell. Daryl's been shot.

“Maggie?” Glenn whimpers.

She's crying.

“On your knees!”

Glenn is pushed into line again.

“Alright!” moustache yells. “We got a full boat! Let's meet the man...” He steps over to the RV and knocks on the door, then disappears into the crowd, tossing my gun to the floor before me. I look at it, then look away.

Footsteps echo from the RV, the door swings open, and Negan steps down. He’s tall and dark with slicked-back hair and a pale, stubbled face. His laugh lines are deep and he wears a zip-up, black, leather jacket and a red scarf tucked into it around his neck, and on his shoulder, sits a large, wooden, baseball bat wrapped in barbed-wire.

I look at my Beretta again and recognise the bat carved into the handle.

“We pissing our pants yet?” Negan asks. “Oh, _boy,_ do I have a feeling we're getting _close_.” He strides in front of the head-lights, making a slow silhouetted walk along us all. “Yep. It's gonna be pee-pee pants city here, _real_ soon...”

He sweeps a finger across us all.

“Which one of you pricks is the leader?”

“It's this one, he's the guy.”

Dad flinches.

Negan lets out a dramatic sigh and squares up to him. “Hi. You're Rick, right? I'm Negan. And I _do not_ appreciate you killing my men. And when I sent my people to kill your people for killing my people, you killed more of my people. Not cool. Not. Fucking. Cool.”

Dad looks at the floor.

“You got no _fucking_ idea how not cool that shit is,” Negan goes on. “But I think you're gonna be up to speed shortly. You are _so_ gonna regret crossing me in a few minutes. Fuck, _yes,_ you are.”

My knees are numb and my breath makes fast, shallow clouds in front of me.

“You see, Rick, whatever you do. No matter fucking what. You don't mess with the new world order. And the new world order is this — and it is really very simple, so, even if you're fucking stupid, which you very well may be, you can understand it. You ready? Here goes. Pay attention. Give me your shit, or I will kill you.”

He leans up and laughs silently.

“Today was career day! We invested a lot so you would know who the fuck I am and what I can do. You work for me now. You have shit, you give it to me. That's your job. Now, I know that is a mighty big nasty pill to swallow, but swallow it you most _certainly_ will...

You ruled the roost.

You built something.

You thought you were safe. I get it.

But, the word is _out_.

You are _not_ safe.

Not even fucking close. In fact, you are fucked. Even more fucked if you don't fucking do what I want. And what I want is half your shit. And if that's too much, you can make, find, or steal more, and it'll even out sooner or later.

This is your way of life now.

The more you fight back, the harder it will be.

So if someone _knocks_ on your door, you fucking _let us in._ We _own_ that door. You try to stop us, and we will fucking _knock_ it the fuck down. You understand?”

Dad shudders.

“What?” Negan asks, cupping a hand to his ear. “No answer?”

The baseball bat twitches by his leg.

“You don't really think that you were gonna get through this without being punished, now, did you? I don't want to kill you people. Just want to make that clear from the get-go. I want you to work for me. You can't do that if you're fucking dead, now can you?”

He waves the bat around, then sets it on his shoulder.

“I'm not growing a garden. But, you killed my people — a whole Goddamn fuck-load of them. More than I'm comfortable with. And for _that..._ you gotta fucking pay. So, now, I'm gonna beat the holy fuck fucking fuckedy _fuck_ outta one of you.”

The baseball bat swings to life again, twisting in his hand.

“This... is Lucille,” Negan introduces, “and she is fucking _awesome_.”

He swings it next to Sasha's face and she gasps.

“All this... is just so we can pick out which one of you gets the honour.” Negan inhales sharply and paces along all of us, walking with his hips first. He moves across Dad and Maggie to Abraham. Negan grins, rubbing his chin. “ _Hmpf,_ I gotta shave this shit.”

He stops in front of me, Lucille thudding to the ground as he crouches down so he can look me in the eye. Negan grins.

“You got one of our guns,” he tells me. “Whoa... Yeah. _You_ got a lot of our guns.”

I watch him, teeth clenched.

“Fuck, kid, lighten up,” he complains. “At least cry a little...” He chuckles, then gets up and stops by Maggie. “Jesus! You. Look. _Shitty._ I should just put you out of your misery right now.”

The bat comes up.

“ _No!_ ” Glenn shouts. “ _No!_ ”

Dwight kicks him in the face and pins him to the ground under Daryl's crossbow.

“Stop it!” Maggie begs.

“Nope, get him back in line,” Negan chirps over Glenn’s howling, letting Lucille lower beside his calf like a disappointed fight dog.

“No!” Glenn pleads, sobbing and screaming and dragged by his collar. “No! No. _Don't!_ Don't...”

Negan laughs. “Alright, listen. Don't any of you fuckers do that again. I will shut that shit down, no exceptions. First one's free. It's an _emotional_ moment — I get it.”

Negan looks at Dad.

“Sucks, don't it?” Negan asks him. “The moment you realise you don't know _shit._ ”

Negan's bat points at me.

“This is your kid, right?”

Dad’s eyes are wet and wild and finds it hilarious. He looks between us, Dad and I, comparing us, until finally he throws his head back and lets out a low-pitched laugh.

“Ho... This is _definitely_ your kid!”

“Just _stop_ this!” Dad shouts.

“HEY!” Negan shouts back, louder. “Do not make me kill the little future fucking serial killer... Don't make it _easy_ on me! I gotta pick somebody. _Eee_ verybody's at the table waiting for me to order.”

He starts whistling, pacing along us all — Lucille drags behind him.

“I simply cannot fucking decide.” He laughs and turns away, then comes back, his arms open. “I got an idea!”

He pulls up Lucille.

“Eenie.”  
Dad.

“Meenie.”  
Maggie.

“Miney.”  
Abraham.

“Mo.”  
Michonne.

“Catch.”  
Daryl and Rosita and Glenn.

“A tiger.”  
Backwards to Daryl.

“By.”  
Rosita.

“His.”  
Maggie again.

“Toe.”  
Dad.

“If.”  
Sasha.

“He hollers.”  
Aaron.

“Let him go.”   
Ahead to Eugene, lingering.  
“My Mother.”

“Told me.”  
Me.

“To pick.”  
Eugene again.

“The very.”  
Me again.

“Best.”  
Aaron.

“One.”   
Sasha.

I think he knows who. I think he’s chosen already.

“And you.”

“Are.”

“It...”

Lucille twirls hungrily, then stops.

“Anybody moves, anybody says anything, cut the boy's other eye out and feed it to his father...” Negan stretches his arms out, cracking his neck and shoulders. “And _then_ we'll start! You can breathe. You can blink. You can cry... Hell, you're _all_ gonna be doing that.”

Seconds turn to years turn to moments turn to millenniums back and forth and up and down and inside out over again until I'm watching Negan's arms come up with Lucille, and he is fast, and _so_ strong, and Lucille's first hit turns skull to cave, bees’ nests to honey and wax and blood and brain matter.

Someone’s screaming.

“ _Ho_! Ho! Look at _that_! Taking it like a _champ_!”

Again: _KRAKK!_

The noises.

WRAKK!

The smell.

SPUKK!

So much blood.

SP _LAU_ G _G_!

And screaming.

 _SQUELCH_!

And then it’s all over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of this chapter was literally the first time I have ever substantially recalled anything I learned in History class and used it for something in my young adult life... 
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	111. Season 7 ~ The Day Will Come When You Won’t Be: Ta Ta

_We’ll have picnics, at home. The table will be full and not just of food but of family. Everyone will be there. Judith will be sitting in my lap, asking for the juice; her hair long and curly. Carol will sit across from us and Dad will be sitting with Michonne, an arm over her shoulder and a kiss on her cheek. At the end of the table, Glenn will sit with his wife, their kid on his lap, and none of this will be a big deal because it will have happened all the time. It’ll just be another Sunday lunch, like always._

_This is our future._

_This is what we have going for us._

* * *

 

I’m laid on my stomach, face in the dirt and dust in my nostrils — wings spread, like I was told.

“Rick, why don’t you take your axe, and cut your son’s left arm off.”

....

Abraham was the first to die.

“Suck...my...nuts...” were his last words as his skull became The Grand Canyon.

“Did you fucking hear that? He said, _"Suck my nuts!"._ ” Negan blew out and laughed, and then he kept going until Abraham’s skull was a puddle. “Oh, my goodness! Look at _this!_ ”

He swung Lucille and blood span outward.

“You guys, look at my dirty girl!” He went to Rosita and presented the bat. “Sweetheart.... lay your eyes on _this._ ”

She wouldn’t.

Negan cursed. “Were you... together? That sucks. But if you were, you should know there was a reason for all this. Red — and fuck, he was, is, and will ever be _Red_. He just took one or six or seven for the team! So, take... a damn... _look._ TAKE A DAMN LOOK!”

Daryl lashed out. Some Saviors tackled him and Dad was yelling and Negan chose not to let Dwight kill him because:—“That's not how it works. I already told you people: first one's free, then — what'd I fucking say? I said I would shut that shit down! No exceptions. Now, I don't know what kind of lying fuck-wits you've been dealing with but I'm a man of my word. First impressions are important. I need you to _know_ me. So, back to it.”

He killed Glenn, too.

“Buddy, you still there? I just don't know. Fuck. It seems like you're trying to speak, but you just took a _hell_ of a hit. I just popped your skull so fucking hard, your eyeball just popped out, and it is _gross as shit!_ ”

“Magg — Maggie... I'll... find... you.”

“Oh...” Negan let him suffer. He let us _all_ suffer. “Oh, fuck. I can see this is hard on you guys. I am sorry. I truly am. But I did say it. No exceptions!”

Blow after blow and he laughed, and we _all_ cried.

“You bunch of pussies,” he told us. “I'm just getting _started._ Lucille is _thirsty._ She is a _vampire_ bat! What? Was the joke that bad?”

“I'm gonna kill you,” Dad said.

“What? I didn't quite catch that. You're gonna have to speak up.”

Dad sniffed. “Not today, not tomorrow... but I'm gonna kill you.”

“Jesus.” Negan inhaled. “Simon, what did he have, a knife?”

“Uh, he had a hatchet...”

“A hatchet?”

“An ax.”

Negan laughed in Dad’s face. “Simon's my right-hand man. Having one of those is important. I mean, what do you have left without them? A whole lot of work. Do you have one? Maybe one of these fine people still breathing? Oh. Or did I...” He clicked his tongue. “Sure. Yeah. Give me his ax.”

Negan took my dad’s collar and dragged him into the RV.

“I'll be right back. Maybe Rick will be with me. And if not, _well,_ we can just turn these people inside out, won't we? I mean the ones that are left!”

While they were gone, the Saviors didn’t let us speak or rest or even take care of our dead. Maggie didn’t stop crying. None of us did. I tried to focus on the Saviors. Some talked about missing breakfast, others about wanting pussy when they got back, or trading this record for that one: “Fuck your shit, man, I ain’t listening to that _Easy Street_ crap for anythin’! Fuckin’ _torture_.” One woman has a chainsaw and another guy has a devil face tattoo. The ground began to dry up as the sun came through the trees and beat down on our heads, but it was still cold, and then, hours later, we heard the RV engine returning and all the Saviors went very quiet again.

The RV parked and Dad was shoved out of the door — Negan stepping out behind him. Dad was a fractured window, all cracked and dented out of shape.

“Here we are,” Negan said, dropping him to his knees in front of us. Abraham’s blood-splash was dried over Dad’s cheek. Lucille hung by Negan’s leg. I imagined her licking her lips, wooden tongue running over barbed teeth. “Let me ask you something, Rick. Do you even know what that little trip was about?”

Dad said nothing. He looked at us.

“Speak when you’re fucking spoken to!”

“Okay... okay.”

“That trip was about the way you looked at me. I wanted to change that. I wanted you to understand. But you’re still looking at me in that same _fucking_ way. In _your_ scrambled eggs, and that’s not gonna work. So, do I give you another chance?”

“Yes. Yes.”

“Okay! Alright. Then here it is. The _grand_ prize game! What you do next, will decide whether your fucked-up day becomes everyone’s _last_ fucked-up day, or just another fucked-up day.”

Negan pointed.

“Get some guns to the back of their heads... Good... Level with their noses, so when you have to fire... _pow!_ It’ll be a _real fucking mess._ ”

And then he asked for me.

“Kid. Right here.”

I didn’t move.

“Kid,” Negan repeated. “Right now.”

Steadily, I got up and strolled across to him. I avoided looking at Dad and instead watched Negan. He said something to me about southpaw but I didn’t understand it. “ _What?_ ”

He unbuckled and removed his belt.

“Are you a leftie?”

Very flatly, I said, “No.”

Negan poked his tongue out between his teeth and bit it. “Good...” He started tying his belt around my left bicep, tight. With a snarl, he asked, “That hurt?”

“No.”

“It should. It’s supposed to.” With another taut yank, he was done. “Alright. Get down on the ground, kid. Next to Daddy. Spread them wings!”

He knocked off my hat and pushed me so I was flat. I laid my cheek in the dirt and stared ahead of me.

“Simon. You got a pen?”

“Yeah.” He threw one over.

Negan knelt beside me. “Sorry, kid. This is gonna be as cold as a warlock’s ballsack. Like he’s hanging his ballsack above you, and just _draaaged,_ right across your forearm.”

He draws a straight, horizontal line half way up my forearm.

“Give you a little leverage,” Negan added.

“Please don’t...” Dad said.

“Me? I ain’t doin’ shit.” He clipped the pen shut and stood, crunching gravel as he stepped back. “Rick, why don’t you take your axe, and cut your son’s left arm off... Right on that line. Now, I know, I know. You have to process that for a second. That makes sense. Still though, I’m gonna need you to do it, or _all_ these people are gonna die. Then Carl dies. Then the people back home die. And then you, eventually. I’m gonna keep you breathing for a few years just so you can _stew_ on it—”

“You — You don’t have to do this,” Michonne begs. “We understand. We understand. We—”

“ _You_ understand, yeah!” Negan exclaims. “I’m not sure Rick does.”

Dad’s trying to meet my eyes but I’m not letting him. I’m thinking... I don’t know what I’m thinking. I’m thinking this is really going to happen. I’m thinking I’m going to lose my arm. There isn’t much else to think about in a situation like this.

“I’m gonna need a clean cut,” Negan goes on. “Right there on that line. Now, I know this is a fucked-up thing to ask, but it’s gonna have to be like a... a salami slice. Nothin’ messy. Clean. Forty-five degrees. Give us something to fold over. We got a _great_ doctor — kid’ll be fine... probably.”

Still, Dad doesn’t move.

My heart is throbbing around my tongue, blocking air.

“Rick.... this needs to happen _now_. Chop chop. Or I crush the little fucker’s skull myself.”

“It can — It can... It can be me.” Dad’s voice breaks. “It can be me. You — You can do it to me. I can... I can go, with... with you.”

“No. This is the only way. Rick, pick up the axe. _Not_ making a decision is _a_ _big fucking decision!_ You really wanna see all these people _die!_ You will! You will see _every, ugly, fucking, thing!_ ”

Dad is sobbing.

“Oh my _God!_ ” Negan complains. “Are you gonna make me count? Okay, Rick, you win! I am fucking counting. _Three!_ ”

“ _Please! It can be me! Please!_ ”

“Two!”

Dad wails.

“This is it,” Negan whispers, slapping him, and Dad screams and takes my hand and holds it still and he screams and screams and picks up his axe.

“Dad, just do it. Just do it.”

He raises his hand above his head, and then... the screaming stops. My eyes are shut. Everything is quiet. I don’t know what’s happened but I do. _I do._ Negan broke him. Worse than a fractured window.

Negan’s voice is very calm. “You answer to me. You provide for me. You _belong_ to me.”

Dad is nodding, heaving.

Negan grabs his face.

“ _Speak when you’re fucking spoken to!_ You answer to me! You provide for _me!_ ”

“I provide for you!”

“You belong to me! _Right!_ ”

“Right!”

“ _Right!_ ” Negan points. “ _That_ is the look I wanted to see!”

He stands up, collects the axe. He tells us we did it, that all of us did it. Even Abraham and Glenn. “Hell, they get the _Spirit Award_ for sure!” He tells us today was productive, and that he hopes we get it now, that we understand how things work. He tells us that things have changed and that anything we had going for us is over.

And then they take Daryl.

“He’s got guts. Not a little _bitch_ like someone I know. I like him. He’s mine now.” He tells us if we try to rescue him he’s going to cut pieces off and leave them on our doorstep, or—“fucking _better yet..._ ” he’ll make Dad do it himself. “Welcome to a brand-new beginning, you sorry _fucks!_ ”

And then they file to their vehicles. Some Saviors are taking photos.

“I’ll leave you a truck. Use it to cart all the crap you’re gonna find me. We’ll be back for our first offering in one week, until then...” He throws Dad’s axe down beside us. “Ta ta!”

* * *

 

“Maggie... Maggie...”

Someone is sobbing.

“Maggie, you need to sit down... Maggie.”

“No.”

“We need to get you to the Hilltop.”

“You need to go get ready.”

“For what?” Dad asks.

“To fight them...”

I look up to her. All this time, I was so set on beating them, so set on teaching them a lesson. I didn’t even consider us losing. I was so wrong.

“They have Daryl,” Dad says. “They have an army. We would die... all of us.”

“Go home.” She can hardly breathe. “Take everybody with you. I can get there by myself.”

“You can barely stand up.”

“I need to go! _You_ need to go to Alexandria! You were out — out here for me.”

“We still are,” Dad tells her.

She sobs. “I can make it now. I need you to go back. I can't have you out here. I can't have you...all out here anymore. _I need you to go back!_ ”

“Maggie, we're not letting you go,” Michonne says. “Okay?”

“You have to.”

Dad sighs. “It's not gonna happen.”

I stand up, aching. Sasha gets up, too, says, “I'm taking her. I'm gonna get her there. I'm gonna keep her safe.” She takes her elbow. “I'm not giving you a choice.”

“I'm taking him with me,” Maggie cries.

“I'm gonna take Abraham,” Sasha whispers to Rosita. “That's what I'm gonna do.”

While Sasha, Eugene and Rosita take Abraham, we try to help Maggie lift Glenn’s shoulders but she waves us away. “I need to do this. Please.”

“We need to help you,” Aaron whispers.

I touch her shoulder. “I got it. I got it...”

“No. No.”

“Please let us,” Dad asks. “He — He's our family,t — He's our family, too.”

She’s sobbing, turning around in my arms and I hold her. I help lift Glenn, and Dad, Michonne, Aaron and I carry him to the RV, and when we’ve gotten Abraham in, too, we all drive home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can never listen to Easy Street again.
> 
> RIP Abraham Ford  
> RIP Glenn Rhee
> 
> Next chapter up in about a month. Maybe sooner. Depends on how well life is going. The more I upload the more I'm avoiding something in real life so we'll just have to see...
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	112. Season 7 ~ The Well, Part 1: The Act

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Some ungraphic sexual themes.

_Better stop dreaming of the quiet life_  
_‘Cos it’s the one we’ll never know_  
_And quit running for that runaway bus_  
_‘Cos those roset days are few_  
_And stop apologising for the things you’ve never done_  
_‘Cos time is short and life is cruel_  
_But it’s up to us to change_  
_This town called Malice..._

There's a reason Oliver was the understudy in Romeo and Juliet in eighth grade. He could act, and he could pretend, and sometimes, outside school, it was even useful.

When he arrived at the Kingdom —a high school turned community— with Carol and Morgan, Oliver felt very alone. A one-man performance. And even now, while Carol recovers and Morgan waits for her to do that, Oliver attends school in the gazebo and goes to training like all the other teenagers are expected to, because he has to cater to them, his audience, the Kingdommers, living happily in their big, make-believe playground. He tells people he got his scars from a skiing accident as a kid, that he lost his arm before the turn, from an infection when he was a baby. However, he isn’t perfect at it, keeping up his act — evident as, within a week at the Kingdom, Oliver finds himself getting sucker-punched directly in the nose.

He reels back, landing hard in the dirt, glasses askew and warm red oozing between his fingers. Standing over him is Morayo Dimka, or Ray, for short — almost a year older than Oliver, with jet-black, short dreadlocks tied up in a small bun above his head and a buzzed undercut. Ray's black eyes are wide apart and shining and his skin is dark brown and shockingly painful when it connects to your nose at high speed.

Oliver pushes his back to a wire-mesh fence and tries to catch his breath, goats bleating behind him. Ray tries to grab him but gets a knee through his groin and collapses to his knees, clutching between his legs. Oliver resits his glasses, then punches Ray clean across the cheek.

"I win, sport..."

Steam spews out of Ray’s ears and nose, and his eyes move behind Oliver’s head and Oliver turns in time to watch Leviathan O'Donnell, who Oliver theorises was sculpted from sterling with eyes of peridotite and hair wound from gold — ram him, full force, straight through the goat pen.

Leviathan’s probably the most beautiful person Oliver’s ever been beaten up by, he thinks. He’s taller than Oliver and a _whole_ lot stronger, but he figures Leviathan's younger than him by three and a half months so that has to count for something. He thrashes and yells and grunts and finally manages to catch Leviathan’s throat with an elbow, sending him twisting back and hugging his face. Then Ray is back, tackling him and holding his face down in goat shit. Other kids are standing outside the pen, cheering and screaming. Goats are escaping, and other adults are yelling and trying to break them up.

Something roars, and like spooked birds, everybody still standing flees for their life while the king and his tiger march across their kingdom. Ezekiel, the king, and Shiva, his tiger, meet the three boys under the shadow of the gazebo.

"What is the meaning of this madness?" Ezekiel orders, and not even Oliver can act like anybody with a pet tiger isn't completely terrifying, even if they do talk like they're in a _Macbeth_ play. The king is tall, with dark weathered skin and a beard. His hair is long and greying and dreadlocked, falling past his shoulders and decorated with beads and feathers, braided in the back. He wears a heavy trench coat and gloves and carries a long cane with a handle on the top in the shape of a griffin, and held in his fist is a single chain looped around Shiva's neck — she alone is twice their sizes combined, and eats more than ten men in a day, but she doesn't lay one claw on the king or his people.

"Boys," Ezekiel rumbles, "come out of there and explain yourselves."

A man and another boy Oliver doesn’t know have managed to chase down the escapee goats, looking overheated and worn out while they herd them back in and try to do something about the broken fence. While Ray and Leviathan stumble over accusations, Oliver stands back, attempting to slow his bleeding nose, shit and grass stains all over his knees and hoodie. He doesn't need to prove himself.

He notices a small group of girls standing off on the sidewalk with other watching civilians, and watches them. They giggle and walk away.

Finally, he’s asked for his account of the event.

"They were bullying Juni," Oliver says, sounding like a duck through his fingers. "They were telling him they were going to feed him to the walkers."

"Not true!" "He's lying!"

Ezekiel leaves him and stands over Morayo and Leviathan like a tower. Shiva stares Oliver down, her eyes deep and yellow with small, black, squinting slits. This is the closest Oliver's come to peeing his pants since he was little. He stays absolutely still, watching her long, sharp, pearly fangs.

“Boys,” Ezekiel asks Ray and Leviathan, “what conflict do you have with young Juni Hale? He is but eleven years old.”

"He was wearing a dress, your majesty," Leviathan says. “We were just trying to teach him that he shouldn’t do that.”

Ezekiel frowns. "And what of him wearing a dress? Should I also feed myself to the fallen for the feathers in my hair, and the stars on my shirt pattern?"

Leviathan falters. Ray looks very small. "No. But—"

"Then neither should anybody else," Ezekiel says, "for whatever garment they choose to lay upon their skin. Understood?"

"Understood, King Ezekiel."

“Understood.”

Ezekiel looks at Oliver, waiting.

"Oh. Yeah. Understood, sir."

Shiva growls.

“Er... King Ezekiel, I mean.”

Purrs.

“Off with you,” Ezekiel says, “to the infirmary.”

* * *

 

Luckily, Morayo's balls are still functioning and Leviathan's nose was reset and should heal within a few weeks. Oliver, alone now, sits in Carol’s room, watching her sleep with bloody tissues screwed up in his nostrils. Outside the window, a wind chime made from a strainer and keys blows in the breeze. On the bedside, Morgan’s left a rabbit's foot; for her luck. Oliver didn’t leave her anything, he just... left, with his backpack, after a few minutes — though on his way out, he walks into Morgan. Oliver pulls the tissues out of his nose.

Morgan sighs. "Where'd you get those bruises?"

“Nowhere.”

"Your nose—"

"Nothing. It's nothing."

"You got into another fight..."

"What? No.” Oliver laughs. “Listen... I gotta go to the stables. Chores and all. See you later?" He doesn’t wait for a response and quickly shuffles by and leaves.

The stables are a row of redesigned storage freights with an oval-shaped pen outside. Once there, Oliver gets to helping Benjamin, a young guard and one of the stable-hands, to mucking out and turning most of the horses out to the large, fenced, playing field behind the school. After that, Oliver gets to tending to the ashen-grey horse. The one that bites.

“He likes you,” Benjamin says.

“Doubt that,” Oliver says, dodging teeth. “Somehow.”

Benjamin laughs. “Come on. You saved his life.” It’s true. Oliver did, on the way here that day; walkers came and Carol tried again to run away, and the horse was bit on the ear and Oliver, thinking quickly, sliced the whole thing off; animals don’t turn but the infection still kills them.

Benjamin helps Oliver clean the amputation and re-wrap the horse's head. Ben’s here a lot. He’s eighteen and his hair is like Jack’s from Titanic and he’s really good with the horses, and has been teaching Oliver how to care for them. He’s also the only person at the Kingdom so far who Oliver feels genuinely comfortable around.

“You thought of a name for him yet?” Benjamin asks.

“Have ‘I’?”

Ben shrugs. “Nobody’s given him one yet. He hasn’t been here very long."

Oliver thought about it, and said, “Roan,” on account of his colour.

Ben grimaces. “Roan. I like it — oh, how'd your date go?”

“It wasn’t a date.”

“And that isn’t answering my question.”

In truth, Oliver doesn’t want to tell Benjamin what happened. Something of a new development has slipped among Oliver's personality traits within the last several months. He hadn’t ever noticed it until recently, getting here, but he likes to flirt with people. It’s easier with girls. And it’s fun. And it takes his mind off things. And this morning it wound up with him meeting Isabelle —who's sixteen and wears big sweatshirts— in the theatre; she’d worn his glasses in class and called him cute, and when she passed him a note asking him to meet her, he sort of just went with it. And as promised, this morning Isabelle was waiting in one of the drama classrooms. They talked about school and her friends and smoked a cigarette she’d stole from her father, and then she began to kiss him. She let him slip his hand under her sweatshirt and put his tongue against her heartbeat. Oliver wanted to eat it. He wanted to tear it up in his teeth. The smell of cigarette smoke filled his nose and soon his mind ran away without him, so he undid his pants and she knelt down in front of him and as fast as it all started it was over even faster.

"Err. Thanks," he said, after, buttoning himself up, "for... uh, yeah."

"Yeah, sure," Isabelle said, pulling her sweatshirt back on. Her hair was messed up. "Wanna come get breakfast?"

"Err, actually, I gotta go do chores."

"Oh... another time then."

"Maybe."

"Well, what about the movie tonight? We could sit together?"

"I'm not really into movies — I'll think about it."

"Yeah... sure."

Oliver flashed her a grin and she fell for it.

"Later, Oliver."

"Bye."

They haven’t spoken since.

There's sunlight coming in through the stable door and Benjamin's shrugging shadow cuts across it. “Fine. Keep it to yourself then, Apple." Oliver’s not sure why Ben calls him this.

"Yep,” he says, then—“ouch!"

This bite's right on the shoulder _._

"Shit, you jinxed me!" Oliver growls, pushing Roan's snappy face away. "Oddio, questo fa male." If he really wanted to he could crush Oliver with one kick, so the fact that he hasn’t is pretty comforting.

Oliver leaves the stable.

Benjamin's watching something. "Hey, that’s your guy... headed into the theatre, took that lady’s with him. She's awake — whoa, jeez, Apple."

Oliver's already leaving. Right next door to the stables is the theatre. Oliver's given a friendly salute from a guard outside that he returns, and then he's rushing through the building. On the wall right as he goes in, there's a quote that reads:

 _'Hope is the North Star. Let it Guide You._ _  
_ _\- K.E’_

It reminds Oliver of something Carl liked to talk about, how if you follow the North Star you'll always find your way home.

The wheelchair and Morgan's shoulders turn into the auditorium. Oliver catches a glimpse of Carol's sliver hair and hears Shiva growling from inside. He peeks around the wall, watching Morgan park Carol's chair in front of the stage. He can't see her just yet; Morgan's stood in the way, but he can see Ezekiel, sitting in a prop throne up on stage, tiger by his side, and a kingdom landscape backdrop behind them.

Oliver can only imagine Carol's face.

"I, uh..." Morgan says. "I forgot to say that Ezekiel has a tiger."

Shiva doesn't like new-comers. Always prefers to scare them. Shiva's roar is earth-shaking. Oliver can hear Carol's too. It's the sound in her chest. The sound of her soul. A roar like Shiva's only loud enough to move solar systems — Oliver used to do this in his head when he was a kid; make up soul sounds for people if he thought he knew them well enough. But he reminds himself he doesn't know Carol at all. Not anymore.

"Shiva," Ezekiel resonates. "Enough..."

Growls waver to snarls.

"The fair maiden has been through a myriad of trials," Ezekiel adds. "They are our guests."

"Chill it up, S," Jerry says. "Chill. It. Up." Jerry is Ezekiel's right-hand man. He's big and tall and dresses in a red suit with his hair slicked back into a pony-tail and his beard short and scruffy. He grins at thin air and offers you weed if you ask him — Benjamin told Oliver this, but he hasn't tried yet.

"Jerry," Ezekiel says, "you are a faithful steward, but your words leave me pitch-kettled."

Oliver doesn't know what this means. Oliver doesn't know what 'chill it up' means either. But he can guess not knowing what they mean might be what 'pitch-kettled' means.

"I understand your concern, Shiva," Ezekiel moves on. "You haven't met Carol. Nor have I. But given how trustworthy her company has proved itself, we shall consider her a friend of the realm until proven otherwise."

"She's doing better," Morgan tells him, "thanks to you and your people, so..."

"Indeed!" Ezekiel says. "It pleases me to see you up and about, Carol. I am King Ezekiel. Welcome to the Kingdom."

Rumbles echo from inside Shiva's chest. Oliver feels the floorboards shudder.

"You have been addressed by the king, yet you remain silent," Carol is told. "Do I detect scepticism? Perhaps you think me mad. Perhaps you see this place as nothing more than a mirage. So, tell me, what do you think of the Kingdom, Carol? What do you think of the king?"

He asked Oliver the same questions when they met and Oliver said something about tigers and zebra and Ezekiel smiled and Jerry laughed and Oliver got the part he wanted. He hates that Carol uses the same tactic.

"I think you're amazing. It's amazing!" she says, gasping. "And your Sheba..."

"It's, uh, Shiva," Jerry corrects her.

She swoons. "Shiva... Amazing. I would be speechless if I wasn't already speaking. I don't know what the hell's going on in the most wonderful way!"

Ezekiel appreciates this.

"As Morgan is aware," he says, "I encourage those who find respite here to enjoy the fruits of our grandeur for as long as they like, so long as they contribute."

Oliver whispers the king's next words along with him...

"Drink from the well, replenish the well."

It's written on the wall inside Carol's infirmary room.

Ezekiel adds, "Once you've healed, of course."

"Of course," Carol cries. "Of course! All about the well."

"Well said," Jerry laughs.

"Jerry," Ezekiel settles him. "Ah! Where are my manners?" He snaps his fingers and Jerry's elephant-like footsteps stomp around the stage for a second. "Please, partake. We have magnificent apples, nectarines, pomegranates. All grown right here inside the Kingdom."

"It's fruit time," Jerry says.

"I... I couldn't." Carol sighs.

Shiva grumbles.

"Oh, come now," Ezekiel insists. "At least take a pomegranate."

"I always found them too much trouble."

"Sweet fruit surrounded by bitter," Ezekiel philosophises, "they're something of a contradiction, but heaven for the effort."

Still, Carol refuses. "You park some chocolate in front of me and watch it go bye-bye, but pomegranates... just not for me, thanks."

"Well, if there's anything you want or need," Ezekiel says, like he's been speaking on a stage his whole life. "If you enjoy music, we have a guitarist whose talent brings tears to the eye, and we have a small choir."

"Thank you," she says. "All I need is some more rest, and maybe a hairbrush." Her chuckle is sweet and light and Oliver almost yacks. "No one told me I'd be meeting royalty... Anyway uh, Your Majesty — I should call you 'Your Majesty' right?"

"You can."

"Thank you, Your Majesty. It's a pleasure."

"The pleasure is mine, Carol. Be well."

When Oliver hears them coming, he bails, hightailing it the way he came and dodging into the room he and Isabelle used this morning. There's a singed mark on the table-top. Morgan and Carol don't come this way. Oliver hears them being taken around back, which is a quicker way to the infirmary. He leaves the room and runs out the way he came in, all the way around the building, but almost runs right into them on the other side and dives behind the cafeteria wall. He peeks down the outside corridor-decking that overlooks the grounds and theatre. Morgan wheels Carol down the ramp and parks her in the path, waving to two Kingdommers who are coming Oliver's way and when they turn the corner to him, he grins at them and pretends he's cleaning his glasses. When they're gone, Oliver presses to the wall again, listening.

"You're shitting me, right?"

"It's... a lot. He is, um, I don't know. It... It—"

"Stop it, Morgan. Stop this. This place is a damn circus — all of it. These people. This is make-believe. It's playtime. And you're just..." She laughs at him. "I can't do this. I can't be here."

"Look, Carol, these people found—"

"No, I can't. I won't. I'll wait. And when you're not there to stop me, when nobody else is, I'll go."

"You know I can't let you. No. I'll—"

"You'll what? Tie me up like that wolf? Is that it? It isn't up to you... It wasn't before in the basement, it wasn't at the library, and it isn't now. I don't give a shit if you think you've found the secret to life—"

"No, I don't... I don't, and I haven't. And I know what I've started..."

“What?” she asks.

"Oliver is here."

Peeking, Oliver sees the world crash in around Carol's head.

"What? What do you mean he’s — How did... I thought... I thought..."

"He hasn't told me much of how he found us," Morgan explains. "But, we went looking for you; him, Rick and me, but he and Rick went home and I kept on looking, then... few hours later he just... showed up at the library, as you left."

Carol is speechless.

"There seems to be a pattern with you two,” Morgan says. “When one of you shows up, the other one disappears again... I won't let you die out there. That's what I won't do. That's what Oliver can't do."

Oliver doesn't stay after that. He hears her say, "It doesn't matter what you do," before he's turned on his heel and left, aware that he's the pomegranate, sweet surrounded by bitter.

Too much trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was Town Called Malice by The Jam.
> 
> I've been reading up a lot (and just reading – blame I'll Give You the Sun I'm still not over it) about coping mechanisms to stress and abandonment and all that heavy horrible stuff, and shutting himself inside himself is a really interesting and new way to write him for now. I'm super open to opinions. He'll be back telling his own story soon, I swear...
> 
> Also, I don't know why it took me finishing writing this chapter to actually notice the theatre/acting theme the show was using in it (you guys probably can tell that half of my crap on here usually ends up following themes out of pure accident *cough cough* smoke and Peter pan and stale food and closets) Also, also, I used to look after a horse like Roan, called Sam, but I'd call him Samwazowsk, and I feel for Oliver so much. Some horses are complicated and grumpy and need kind treats and small quiet neck-rubs.
> 
> Also, about some of the new OCs of note:
> 
> Juni has been in my head for a while so I thought I might as well put him somewhere.
> 
> Leviathan O'Donnell, aka. Young Thor, whose name first means 'big sea creature' and second means 'ruler of the world' because idk lol not everything has to mean something ok god i just like the name a lot.
> 
> Morayo Dimka, aka. Ray. He's got some stuff going on and I love him.
> 
> Isabelle. She does boys favours sometimes. She is not a new love interest. I'm not sure what she looks like. Oliver was very disassociated during the whole experience. I enjoy her a bunch but I don't see her being a big part of the story.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	113. Season 7 ~ The Well, Part 2: Choir

The garden is made with filing cabinets and tires lined up in rows, and has an irrigation system that runs into the gutters alongside the stables. Oliver is sitting against the fence while Roan sunbathes in the round pen, writing in the dust with his finger...

 _‘Gov’s guy_  
_Termite 2?_  
_Wolves 3_  
_Mikey_  
_‘Chelle_  
_Merope_

_9’_

_“I stopped counting when I hit double digits.  
That's right around the time I stopped feeling bad about it.”_

He swipes his hand through the dirt, not sure if he should count the candle lady, which is why he put the question mark.

Roan keeps sniffing at him, but Oliver has to ignore this otherwise he’ll get bitten — in truth Oliver isn’t sure if he’s sitting inside the pen in the hope he _does_ get bitten. After a while, Benjamin comes over, done turning the flaxen horse out to pasture.

“What are you still doing here? You finished chores already.”

Oliver nods. “Yeah, I’m done. Just came to ask you something?”

“Anything, Apple,” Benjamin says, leaving an empty halter on a fence post. “What’s up?”

“Can I stay at yours for a while?”

Ben frowns, taken off guard.

“Just until Ezekiel can find me somewhere,” Oliver adds.

“How come you aren’t staying in the clinic with your mom?”

“She’s not my mom.”

Ben frowns. “Okay.”

For a second, Oliver can’t think what to do, so he gives up. “Forget it, man,” he chirps. “I’ll just camp out here.”

Benjamin laughs, then makes a weird bleating sound. Oliver gives him a startled look and Ben clears his throat. “Wait, you _can’t_ be serious?” he says. “You’ll sleep outside?”

“Done it before.” Oliver shrugs.

They both laugh this time, and then Ben slaps Oliver’s shoulder and says, “Don’t sweat it, Apple. You can sleep at mine for a few days. Help out around the place and stuff. It’ll be like having another brother. Henry’ll love it.”

“Oh. Awesome.”

They share a fist bump while Oliver pushes the gate open, walking backwards, and as he turns around he walks right into Ezekiel. Oliver checks for Shiva but she isn’t here. Ezekiel doesn’t bring her to the stables a lot.

“Benjamin, if you’d be so kind...”

At Ezekiel’s request, Benjamin gives them a few minutes to speak privately. Ezekiel tells Oliver, “Morgan has told me many favourable things about you. He is disappointed to hear you’d found yourself in a fight today.”

Oliver keeps quiet; trying not to do that angsty teenage thing.

“He is very concerned about you, Oliver.”

 _I don't care,_ Oliver thinks, but says, “I’m sorry.”

Ezekiel gives him this odd look then. It’s the look you give someone when you have a secret together, but the thing is, Oliver doesn’t know what their secret is...

Ezekiel tells him that he and Morgan agreed on the consequences of Oliver’s behaviour, but doesn’t explain what it will be, just says, “Come, Oliver! Assist me and my men on an errand today. You have already shown that you are quite the connoisseur in hand-to-hand combat, have you not?”

“Just the one hand,” Oliver says.

“Ha!” Ezekiel slaps his back. “A man with a good sense of humour — a highly-valued member within the realm. You and I will be friends, I am sure.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“Now!” Ezekiel cries. “Let us have you a weapon on your belt, and see what other skills you have hidden up your sleeve. I shall invite Benjamin along, too, since he needs all the practice he can get.”

While Ezekiel does that, a guard, Richard, who Oliver thinks looks uncomfortably similar to the Governor, but with two eyes, takes Oliver to the armoury. He’s offered armour that reminds him of the sort he'd see in paint-ball fights, but declines wearing any. When he asks why he’s being given a hunting knife and not a gun as well, he’s told they won’t need them:—“Yet.” Richard has a very low, tired voice.

Once set, he and Oliver go and meet Morgan, Ezekiel, Benjamin, Jerry, a woman called Diane, who is Leviathan's mother, and another man who doesn’t introduce himself. Then, when they’re all set, they get going.

Again, Shiva stays behind.

Oliver’s not sure full-grown tigers like riding in trailers much anyway.

-oxoxo-

They’re going hunting.

“Hunting what?”

“What was once captive to the farm now runs free in the city.”

There’s a word for this. _Circumvent_ ; to get around explaining something by explaining something else. It distracts people. Politicians do it to get votes. Oliver’s dad used to do it so that he and Patrick would stop asking questions. Ezekiel seems to do it for sport.

The city is Rosslyn. On the way there, they drive over a bridge and can see the Washington Monument; little rotten figures wading in the water. Oliver thinks of that the day he and the others drove to Alexandria, going over a bypass similar to this one. One different turn was all it would’ve taken for them to have found the Kingdom instead. Another different turn and they could’ve just as easily wound up finding the Saviors, or the Hilltop, or an entirely _new_ group.

How so many people can be so close by and not even know it makes Oliver feel like an ant that’s part of a colony it’s never met before. The world is never quite as dead as anybody thinks it is. There’s always something left. Someone else around with a heartbeat.

Rosslyn is like every city now; overgrown and wild. Despite Ezekiel’s elusiveness, Oliver and Morgan soon learn they’re hunting feral pigs. On foot, they chase them through the outskirts of the deserted city into a driveway of an old neglected motel. The pigs are snorting and squealing and their hunters are yelling and clapping their hands.

“Here! Come on!”

“Come on! Come on!”

“Whoo!”

“Turn! Turn!”

“Whoo, whoo!”

“Go now! Go now!”

Inside one motel room, Diane and Richard have already cleared a space for the trap, and when all pigs are inside Oliver sees the strung-up walker tied by its wrists to the ceiling fan and then the door is slammed shut. He stares, disturbed, but then Benjamin grabs him and noogies him.

“Nice one, Apple!”

Laughing, Oliver shoves him off, snatching back his glasses because Benjamin had stolen them.

“Well done, Richard,” Ezekiel praises.

“It's just what we needed,” he nods, holding a safety-stick he must’ve used on the walker. Richard looks sad today. The wrinkles along his forehead are all lining up and if he stands still for too long he starts to look like a folded seat; but a broken one.

“Why the walker?” Morgan asks. “We're herding them in. Why do you need bait?”

“Because I want their bellies full of rot,” Richard says. “That's why.”

Oliver shudders, then his shoulders are grabbed and he startles, but sees it’s Benjamin and relaxes. With a smile, Benjamin whispers in Oliver’s ear, “The pigs aren’t for us...”

* * *

 

Ten minutes later, eight fed pigs are all inside the truck trailer. Walkers have heard all the shouting, and while Oliver and Benjamin are on watch they see them coming, so they come down from the garage roof and tell everyone.

Benjamin looks nervous.

“We’ve got this, man,” Oliver adds.

“Yeah. Yeah, we got this.”

Oliver thinks of Patrick. He used to get nervous, like this, and Oliver would too but he was the first to put one down, and would always be the one helping Patrick do it. He thinks of the day in the candy store, how it was him who looked for a way out, how Patrick panicked, and Oliver had to scream at him to get his ass moving. Ben’s like Pat; he needs someone to light a fire up his ass.

Ezekiel is watching the treeline across the courtyard closely, listening for the undead.

“You shoot a machine gun in the woods, and nothing,” Richard complains. “You only gotta _cough_ in the city, and—” He stops, because they’re here now, stumbling through the brush.

“Diane,” Ezekiel says, “retrieve the truck. We'll take our leave.” She runs around the side of the building for the other vehicle they brought. One walker has spotted them. “Ben...”

He spins around, face pale.

“You're up,” Ezekiel adds. “Use the machete. Just as you and Jerry have practiced.”

“Yeah.” Ben unsheathes, his shoulders bunched anxiously. “Like we practiced.”

His charge is sloppy, missing skull. Ben falls back with the walker on top of him, but Jerry is there, knocking the corpse to the floor. Oliver’s heart is pounding while Ezekiel steps forward and puts a boot on the corpse’s shoulder. Ben avoids looking at anything while his king kneels, pulling a blade that had been hidden inside his cane, under the griffin — and plunging it through the walker’s face.

“Do not be troubled, Benjamin,” Ezekiel says, returning the machete. “Next time.”

Just then, Diane returns and parks in the driveway. The man, who still hasn’t given his name, gets in the other truck that the pigs are inside of and waits for Richard to join him.

“No one back home needs to know about this,” he tells them.

“You mean the pigs — that they're eating the dead?” Morgan asks.

“Any of it.”

Oliver knows they’re hiding something. But he doesn’t think about it much yet because the walkers are still coming and he doesn’t know if they’re going to take care of them or just leave. The latter, by the looks, which Oliver tries not to feel too disappointed by. But then there’s a walker, out of nowhere, grabbing Benjamin and — and Morgan knocks its brains across the dirt. Ben looks sick. Quickly, Oliver grabs his shoulder and drags him towards the truck.

“Come on, man.”

They sit quickly with fidgety hands and rocking knees. After a second Oliver laughs, and Ben punches him.

“Sorry,” Oliver says, wincing, “but this is good.”

“W... what?”

“If you’re scared, it means you’re taking this seriously. It means you’re trying not to die.”

“You’re not scared though,” Benjamin says, wiping his forehead. Oliver huffs. Ben frowns, but gets distracted when, outside, he sees Ezekiel raise his sword towards the dead.

“May we one day cease you all from this curse!” he bellows. “Till then, know that we live on in your place — full, festive, faithful, and _free!_ ”

Sometimes, when Oliver watches Ezekiel be Ezekiel, he feels like he’s seeing one of Nell’s fics come to life. She would’ve fallen in love with Ezekiel.

“Only halfway free,” Richard mutters.

Ezekiel sheaths his sword and climbs into the truck, after Morgan. The squeeze is tight and uncomfortable but they all manage to make enough room. They drive away. The pig truck pulls out of the adjacent driveway. Richard and his companion are not looking at them while they drive right, the opposite way they came.

Morgan asks, “Where are they going?”

Ezekiel says, “Somewhere else...”

* * *

 

Even back at the Kingdom, Oliver’s has a suspicion that the pig hunting isn’t going to be the _only_ consequence of his fight today, and he’s right. He barely makes it out of the truck before Ezekiel breaks the news to him.

“I’d like you to join the choir, Oliver.”

“...What?”

“The choir,” he repeats. “I hear you have a rather impressive voice.”

Oliver’s eyes shoot Morgan in the stomach and he goes flying into the school building behind him, only he doesn’t really. Morgan stays put, and Oliver smiles and holds back cursing and instead says, “Oh. Right. Um, I don’t really sing for people though.”

“Well, at some point, you must have.”

Oliver thinks not, but then he thinks probably, because he sang and played guitar and uke in his bedroom all the time back home, and it’s not like the walls were soundproof. Oliver shoots Morgan in the stomach with his eyes again but only Morgan feels it because everyone else thinks Oliver’s just smiling at him.

“Choir meet starts at three,” Ezekiel says. “If you go now, you should just make it in time.” Oliver sees he’s right when he checks his watch — just the head now, with Juni’s grandma’s sewing work turning it now into somewhat of a new watch, with a handle of thick, flat, braided, dirty-magenta string, alongside Mika’s bracelet. “I’m sure they would love to gain another member,” Ezekiel adds.

“Cool,” Oliver lies, “thanks.”

He leaves Ezekiel and Morgan alone to talk together while Benjamin shows him where the choir group are in a classroom in the main building.

“See you later, Apple.”

“Yeah...”

For a few minutes, Oliver stands outside and wills God to strike the whole building down on fire, but he remembers that God stopped listening to him since he came here.

He wants to go find Carol; aches to. He’s hoping beyond hope she’s still around. But then he’s reminding himself he doesn’t care, clenching his fist and pushing the door open, charging right into Morayo Dimka’s stomach, and the two teenagers land in a graceless heap on the floor. A rough, moth-bitten rug burns their palms and elbows and knees. Oliver smells patchouli and clean laundry, and with a grunt, Ray shoves him off. Oliver jumps to his feet, expecting fists, but he’s met with two peace signs.

“Truce!” Ray mutters, like calming some wild horse. “Truce, man. Truce.”

Very slowly, Oliver’s fingers mimic the same sign. “Truce...”

Ray sighs with relief.

Oliver eases up, points, then asks, “So, you’re in for choir, too?”

“Mom’s making me, after this morning.”

Oliver watches Ray undo his bun; deadlocks flop in front of his eyes, and at once he ties it all up again with a small purple hairband.

“You?” Ray adds. “Your mom make you?”

“Ezekiel,” Oliver says quickly, smiling wanly, “after this morning.”

Ray makes a _hm_ noise. “Consider us the lucky ones, man. Leviathan’s getting made to fix the goat-shelter.”

“On his own?”

“Nah, Joey Song and his uncle are helping. You know, the goaters?”

“Right. The goaters.”

Ray puts an arm over Oliver’s shoulder. “Glad you’re here, man,” he tells him, and Oliver blinks because this is news to him. He didn’t get the memo that Ray isn’t a _total_ asshole; apparently it’s just a part-time occupation. “Now I don’t gotta put up with this torture alone.”

“What difference does that make?” Oliver asks. “You were about to leave?”

Ray shrugs and doesn’t answer. He instead takes him through a hallway with tall wooden walls and clean wood floors and polished cabinets with school photos and medals and trophies inside. On one wall is another quote:

 _‘The pessimist looks down and hits his head._  
_The optimist looks up and loses his footing._  
_The realist looks forward and adjusts his path accordingly._  
_\- K.E’_

Oliver laughs.

Ray lets go of him. “What, man?”

“Ezekiel totally didn’t say that!” Oliver wants to yell. “That’s from a comic book!” But he instead settles his laughter and just says, “That’s awesome. Oh, God, that’s totally awesome.”

Oliver knows what secret he and Ezekiel have together now. They’re both bullshitting a bullshitter. He’s on to Oliver and Oliver is _totally_ on to his ass now, too.

Lost, Ray scoffs at him and Oliver grins like a fool, then he slaps Ray’s chest, beckons him to come with him, and they both go inside the wreck room. The choir’s already singing. It’s around six or seven people, almost all adults; Oliver and Ray are the only guys from school. There’s another girl though, Lani, from their class who’s Ray’s age. Oliver catches her watching him and smiles and she smiles back. She’s short and stout and has dyed caramel blonde curly hair tied up in a messy bun, darker roots starting to show.

The instructor is a pregnant woman; Oliver tries not to think of Maggie. Behind her, there’s a white board filled with music notes. Oliver doesn’t know how to read music but he wants to. He scoffs at himself. On the other side of the room, there are cushion seats, a table, and an easel with a kid’s painting on it, and in the corner, sitting at the small table and fiddling with a Rubik's cube, is Juni, with his grandma, Ms. Hale, who has small fingers and long, curly, grey hair, sitting beside him. Juni has brown, freckled skin and pale, hazel, oriental eyes, and his reddish-brown hair is wavy and held back with a green headband. Oliver overheard someone say he's got aspergers syndrome, and that he’s deaf. He’s got a bruise on his cheek and he isn’t wring his dress anymore.

Oliver looks at Ray accusingly. Ray looks sorry. Ms. Hale is talking to Juni in sign language and he talks back in between twisting Rubik's sides; all the red stickers have been peeled off.

The choir is still performing a song Oliver doesn’t know, but the pregnant woman is guiding both him and Ray, who were sort of just stood awkwardly to the side, into the huddle of people, who are all harmonising while one man sings.

 _“When your rooster crows at the break of dawn_  
_Look out your window, and I'll be gone_  
_You're the reason I'm a-traveling on_  
_Don't think twice, it's all right_

 _Well, I wish there was somethin' you would do or say_  
_To try and make me change my mind and stay_  
_But we never did too much talking, anyway_  
_But don't think twice, it's all right_

 _So long honey, baby_  
_Where I'm bound, I can't tell_  
_Goodbye is too good a word, babe_  
_So I'll just say, fare thee well._

 _I ain't saying you treated me unkind_  
_You could‘ve done better, but I don't mind_  
_You just kind of wasted my precious time_  
_But don't think twice, it's all right...”_

The pregnant lady gives her praise and tips of criticism, then they go again several times. Until finally choir ends and everybody is standing around talking. Oliver, wanting to leave, squeezes past a few chatty choir members but stops when the instructor takes his elbow.

“It was nice to meet you...”

“Oliver,” he says. “Yes. You too. Sorry. I’ve got to go. I’m late for something.”

“No worries. See you again, honey.”

* * *

 

As he wonders across the school, he finds Shiva sunbathing on Ezekiel’s balcony, and Morgan and Benjamin practicing Aikido on the gazebo. There’s, what was his name? Joey Song? And his uncle, tending to the goats, the pen mended now, and a couple kissing behind the gym bleachers. He even sees Isabelle, sitting with her friends and laughing. None of them see Oliver see this. None of them see him at all.

Oliver’s still good at turning himself invisible.

He spots Carol at some point, wheeling herself around in her chair, and he follows her. She steals a knife and some chocolate when two guards aren’t looking, and then she wheels herself all the way to the laundry lines and turns on the waterworks for some tall dude with a heart bigger than his brain, and while his back it turned, she stuffs a clean set of clothes under her blanket. She keeps looking over her shoulder in Oliver’s direction, like she knows he’s around. He barely dodges out of sight in time. It’s strange, he thinks, how they’ve never been able to go completely invisible to each other.

Oliver thinks of Juni and Ms. Hale. He thinks of Ezekiel and Shiva. Ray and Leviathan. Benjamin and Henry, and even Benjamin and Morgan now. They aren’t alone. But Oliver is. Without Carol, he doesn’t have anyone. He knows that it’s mostly his own fault, but still, everybody’s meant to have somebody, right? Everybody’s meant to have somebody left who won’t leave...

 _‘Let No One Sit Alone_  
_in the Kingdom._  
_\- K.E’_

His eyes are wet and his head is down, and for the second time today, Oliver walks right into Ezekiel. Jerry and Richard are close behind.

“Oliver, how did you find choir?”

“Fine...” Oliver struggles. “It just ended.”

Ezekiel grins, then looks past him at Carol wheeling away, oblivious to them. “I realise that the fair maiden over there was certainly not fooling when she predicted the chocolate would _‘go bye-bye’_.”

Oliver frowns and thinks he might cry, but he pulls on his costume and grins. “Did you like volume six of _The Tremendous Trio?_ ” he asks. “Or... was the wall in the wreck room just an uncanny coincidence?”

Then, no word of a lie, King Ezekiel blushes. He busts out laughing seconds later and reaches out — Oliver almost leaps away from him until he realises he’s only getting patted on his shoulder. Ezekiel pulls Oliver out of earshot of Jerry and Richard, who both look stressed for some reason.

Quietly, Ezekiel says, “You, Oliver, never cease to impress me.”

“I won’t tell,” Oliver explains, not smiling or grinning, “so long as you let her do this.” For a second, he has to take a breath and hold it until he knows he won’t cry. “Alright?”

“And what is it she is planning on doing?”

“She wants to leave,” Oliver tells him. “She’s wanted to leave for a long time now.”

“Preposterous!” Ezekiel laughs. “She’s been here a mere week.”

“No,” Oliver says, “no, it’s not because of here. It’s... It’s me. She wants to leave me. She has to.”

Ezekiel is very quiet then.

“She’ll leave tonight,” Oliver explains, completely sure of it, “like she was never here in the first place.” He keeps pausing so he doesn’t forget to breathe. “Morgan is going to try to look for her, but... he won’t find her. Not this time.”

“I fail to understand, Oliver,” Ezekiel says, “you want her to leave?”

Oliver glares down the pavement.

“I don’t want her to,” he manages, leaving that part there because he can’t go into it. Instead, he twists up his face and says, “If you love someone, you have to let them be happy, and if that means letting them go away from you then you’ll let them do that, because... you love them.”

Ezekiel considers this for a moment until he asks, “Then tell me, young warrior, what happens when the person you love and are losing is already a part of who you are?”

Oliver doesn’t know why Ezekiel asks him this, but... he does, too. Ezekiel keeps a lot of secrets, Oliver thinks, and not just with him. Oliver thinks Ezekiel might have a secret with every person he’s ever met, maybe even Shiva.

So then, what _does_ happen when the person you love and are losing is already a part of who you are?

“Then you have to become someone else,” Oliver answers.

Ezekiel nods like he knows exactly what Oliver’s talking about, and then he smiles, and Oliver smiles back, and their acts are up again and that conversation never happened.

“Come with me,” Ezekiel tells him, louder so Jerry and Richard hear. “We must find Morgan and Benjamin. I think I may have another task for us.”

“Is Ben Morgan’s apprentice now?”

Ezekiel laughs. “I suppose so. Morgan has sworn to keep Benjamin safe — _alive_. Much like he has you.”

Oliver keeps his opinion to himself while they go around the garden to the gazebo.

“Gentlemen,” Ezekiel says as Benjamin pockets a small book that Morgan hands over to him. “Come with us, both of you. We have matters of import to attend to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was Don't Think Twice It's All Right.
> 
> Happy reading.


	114. Season 7 ~ The Well, Part 3: Cherokee Rose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Recreational drug use.

In a deserted parking lot, Oliver waits with Ezekiel, Morgan, Jerry, Benjamin, Diane, Richard and that other guy, a gentle breeze blowing through. Morgan doesn't like the fact he was made to take a gun. Oliver does — the Thunder 9 semi-automatic Ezekiel gave him, to replace his empty Glock, feels good in his holster.

“The swine are slaughtered far from the Kingdom," Ezekiel explains, "lest their screams carry in the wind and invite questions."

Richard and his companion have strung up the tainted pig carcases inside the truck they'd used before. Oliver has a hunch on who is coming to collect, and the hunch doesn't make him feel good. The hunch feels sticky and cold and smells of slaughterhouses and fire and cigarettes.

"What we are doing here is a secret I keep from my people," Ezekiel adds. "Some see secrets as a privilege of ruling. But they are burdens. Not part of the reward. They are the cost."

Two pick-up trucks drive around the compound and Benjamin turns to stone as they pull up into the parking lot ahead of them, breaks squealing. Four men and one woman, all sporting walkie talkies, get out. One man with a rifle stands back, while the others walk over.

"Here, I was worried we were early!” one pale-looking man says.

"Our arrangement is something I consider with the utmost seriousness," Ezekiel answers. "We will fulfil our obligations on time, every time."

"Yes, indeedy you do, and you will." He steps over to the pig-truck. "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven — I count eight, that's good! They look bigger than last time — that's good, too."

"They were well-fed," Richard says dryly. "I made sure of it."

"We appreciate your hospitality. Lucky for us, we brought two trucks. How about you help us load 'em up?"

Diane tilts her head to Oliver and Morgan, in a hushed tone telling them, "They're part of another group. They call themselves—"

"We know who they are," Morgan grumbles.

Once the pigs are loaded up, Ezekiel speaks quietly with the lead guy, Gavin, about their next meet. Oliver stands with Benjamin, whose arms are crossed.

"Hey, asshole, how about a smile?" one tall, young guy with a goatee and long, raked-back hair says. He's thin and lanky and his voice is high and wiry. He dips his head to Richard's height, pointing to the pigs. "This? This is nothing. We've been letting you off easy."

"You sure you don't have that backwards, kid?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

He throws a punch but Richard dodges and knocks him back, trapping him in a headlock. Guns are already up.

"Cease this!" Ezekiel warns. "Lower your weapons. Richard, let him go."

He does, and the younger guy reels back.

"This is not what we do," Ezekiel growls. His voice is so strong it carries into their bones.

The Savior takes no notice.

"Free shot?" he laughs. "Oh, I love this shit!"

This punch sends Richard spinning back with a crack.

"Gavin, tell your man to stop!" Ezekiel orders. "Gavin!"

Gaving waits several moments to speak up.

"Hey! Jared! The man said stop!"

Jared lets Richard go. Richard simply watches him, blood running down his face, in his teeth.

"And he's been good to us," Gavin adds. "We've taken up more than enough of his time..." He whistles. Jared obeys, flipping Richard the bird and slapping him. Oliver's furious, exchanging uncomfortable looks with Benjamin as Ezekiel and Morgan help Richard up. The Saviors are leaving. "Same time next week, all right? It's produce week, so... _produce!_ You got the list — not one bit less. Otherwise, you know... he's gonna have to go first."

They drive away with Jared oinking at them from the back. When Oliver tries to flip him the bird, Benjamin yanks his arm down.

"You've encountered them before?" Ezekiel asks. "Their group?"

"Yeah," Morgan says, glancing at Oliver. “We both have. On two separate occasions. Oliver was a captive for a short while, and I... well... we talked about that.”

Ezekiel nods. "The man you killed to save Carol — he was one of them?"

"He was..." Morgan squints. "Is that why you wanted us here? Because we can do it again if we had to?"

"No, Morgan. Quite the opposite, in fact," Ezekiel says, smiling. He speaks privately to Benjamin for a moment.

Quietly, Jerry asks Oliver, “Kid, you really got taken captive by them?”

Oliver nods stiffly.

“How did you escape?”

Oliver finds it hard to look Jerry, and Jerry must be able to tell that he doesn’t want to speak of it, because he lets it go.

"Come," Ezekiel says to everybody, "let us return home now."

* * *

 

Later, Oliver accompanies Morgan, Benjamin, and Henry to the cafeteria. They eat from school lunch trays; the types with sections. In one is cotton-tail, then mashed potato, broccoli, an apple, a cup of water, a knife and fork, and a napkin. Oliver doesn't throw up after eating anymore so long as he eats all the sections separately and slowly and in order.

"Ben, you sure it's okay if Oliver stays with you and Henry?" Morgan asks.

Oliver almost kicks him under the table.

Ben nods.

"Yeah, we love him!" he says, and Oliver's chest bursts under his T-shirt a little. He knows Ben means it in a brotherly way, maybe not even that, but he doesn't care because it's the second time since before Carl woke up that anybody's said it to him at all. The other time was from Enid. “Don’t we Henry?”

Henry prods his broccoli.

Behind them on the wall is another quote:

_'The Dead are Alive. Lest not the Alive be Dead._  
_\- K.E'_

Finally, Henry gets up from the table. Benjamin stops him:—"Whoa! Whoa... Hey, where you going, hm?" Henry rolls his eyes, and like a brother mirror, Ben rolls his eyes, too. Oliver remembers having a brother mirror; sniffing and yawning and scratching his nose when Patrick would. He remembers one time when he and Patrick were little. Patrick could wiggle his ears and Oliver tried, too, but couldn't get it, so he let Pat spend weeks pulling and yanking his ears into cooperation.

Oliver still can't wiggle them.

"It's movie night tonight," Henry complains. "I want to get a good seat."

Isabelle, sitting across the hall from them, already came over earlier to ask if Oliver was coming tonight. On the spot, he said he wasn’t sure, and now he keeps spotting her looking at him, except Oliver's paying more attention to the girl from choir — Lani. She's sitting one table over with Juni, who Oliver found out is her little brother. She has her hair down now so it sits in every curly direction along her back and shoulders, like her grandma's, but with colour. She's wearing dark russet-coloured lipstick and a pair of gold earrings; Oliver's pretty sure she's the last girl on earth who still wears makeup.

Morgan clears his throat and Oliver looks at his food again.

"Right," Ben is saying to Henry, "but you're gonna clean your plate, though, first."

Henry sighs.

"Come on. That was the deal, Dutch." Benjamin has a lot of nicknames for people. His little brother grabs the last broccoli piece and stuffs it in his mouth, chewing melodramatically. Ben scoffs. "Yeah... _Wow_. Good one, smart guy."

Morgan laughs. Oliver was watching Lani again and snaps his eyes away.

"All right, well, just be in bed by ten," Ron says, "not a minute later."

"But I can read?" Sam replies.

"Yes, you can read."

Ben. Henry.  _Not_  Ron or Sam.

Oliver blinks a few times as Henry walks away.

"He's a good kid," Morgan tells Benjamin.

"Yeah, he is. I only kind of know what I'm doing raising him. Ezekiel's been a big help."

Lani is getting up and taking her empty tray over to the kitchen with Juni. They're signing some conversation to each other that Oliver doesn't understand, but it must be funny because Lani laughs. When they leave, she glances at Oliver, suddenly, and smiles, then leaves. Oliver starts eating faster, worried it won't stay down but hormonal enough to overlook it. He's only half listening to Morgan and Ben's conversation.

"You seem close; you and the king."

"Yeah, he was, uh, pretty tight with my dad. My father was a good fighter. One of the best in the Kingdom."

"How'd it happen?"

"Was about a year ago. Ezekiel sent his detachment out to clear a building. There was too many wasted and not enough backup. Eight men died. My father was one of 'em... But Ezekiel... he's a lot more careful now. He told me that it, uh, well..."

Ben suddenly slides over so that he's sitting opposite them both.

"He, uh, told me he was keeping his deal with that group quiet 'cause he thinks the people would wanna fight," he explains. "He says that even if we did, we wouldn't win — at least, not without losing people, maybe a lot of 'em."

"You don't want to fight?" Oliver asks.

"No," Ben says. "I... I don't know. I mean, I don't know if I know enough to know."

Morgan chuckles.

"Maybe you do," Ben says.

Oliver rubs the scab on his lip, then gets up. "I'm gonna head to the movie."

"Oh, yeah. I'll come, too," Ben says, but he looks at Morgan so Oliver waits. "Hey, um, there was an inscription in the book. It was handwritten... about not killing. Is it yours?"

"It's not, no."

Oliver knows the book they're talking about. He's only ever caught glimpses; Morgan carries it everywhere. It’s surprising he let Ben read it. Then again, Ben has a way of getting you to like him. Not even Oliver remembers not liking Ben.

"'Cause, I also noticed you only put vegetables on your plate during dinner,” Benjamin adds. “And... I mean, you're teaching me Aikido, and if Aikido means not to kill, then that means that you're—"

"It's not about what I think," Morgan interrupts. "People can... They can try and set you in the right direction, but they can't show you the way. You know, you got to find that for yourself, and I thought I had it. I did. But I'm — I'm just fumbling through. Sometimes, we change our minds..."

Ben's hanging off every word. Oliver hears the words, too, but he keeps them out of his head — Oliver's had enough of listening to grown men speak of how to live a life when they hardly know how to live one themselves. He's sick of trying so hard and never getting anything back, so he crosses his arms and doesn’t look at them.

"Well, hey... do you wanna catch movie night?" Ben asks Morgan.

"I can't," Morgan says. He gets up and looks at Oliver. "I, uh. I got to talk to Carol."

_Screw you,_ Oliver thinks.  _Screw you!_

"But thank you, Ben."

* * *

 

The movie is The Lion King and Oliver is sitting next to Lani at the back of the room, cushions under them and the wall to their backs. Ben's on Oliver's other side, and Henry's next to him. Juni's next to Lani on her other side. Other kids are sat around the room, too.

Leviathan, who has a big band-aid over his nose, has a laser light and keeps drawing shapes on the wall and Ben yells at him a couple times until he eventually gets so annoyed he forces both Leviathan and Ray to sit right in front of him.

Oliver’s and Lani's shoulders are touching, but he can't try to hold her hand because he’s on the wrong side of her. As the movie goes on Oliver gets more restless, until finally, Simba and Nala  _'feel the love tonight'_  and Oliver whispers, "Do you want to get out of here?" into Lani's ear.

She looks at him, surprised. "But we're watching The Lion King."

His cheeks burn and he looks away, suddenly engrossed in Simba and Nala while they frolic across the Savannah planes together and Pumba and Timon get all sad about it. Lani goes quiet, then bumps Oliver's shoulder to get his attention again.

"You're a pretty confident guy," she whispers.

He tries to be a good sport and huffs a laugh in agreement, when in truth, his confidence is a drowning kitten; he's grabbing anything he can get his claws on.

"Sorry," she whispers. “But I’m gay.”

Oliver looks at her, grinning. “Me too...” he whispers, “mostly.”

She frowns and grins at the same time. “Bi?"

And for the first time in his life, Oliver whispers, "Bi. Yes."

Lani smiles. “Thank you... for sticking up for my brother today."

"Oh. Yeah. It's whatever," he whispers.

After the movie ends, the kids that don't go home with their parents decide to stick around for a little while. Oliver, Lani, Ben, Henry, Ray and Leviathan all stick around talking, except Juni, who is sitting alone a few feet out of reach of anybody, fiddling with his Rubik's cube. The reason the red stickers are peeled off, Lani said, is that Juni doesn't like anything red. Pink is fine. Orange, too. But red is bad.

Finally, they begin to get up. Oliver can see Isabelle with her friends across the room and a stab of guilt sticks in his stomach. He pushes it away.

"Wanna hang out at mine?" Lani asks. "Guys? Grandma made pie." Lani apparently doesn’t hold grudges and neither does Juni, even though he still has a swollen lip.

"Sure," Ray says.

Leviathan groans yes.

"Um, not tonight," Oliver answers, this ancient anxious feeling pitting inside his stomach. “I'd like to hang out tomorrow though?"

Oliver's never initiated making plans to hang out with any of the kids here before. It takes him off guard. He actually means it.

"Totally!" Lani says. Ray is nodding and Leviathan is rubbing his eyes tiredly, but shrugging. "Later, Oliver."

Oliver feels a grin wind across his face. A real grin. He waves, says goodnight, and leaves the movie room with Ben and Henry.

"Hey, you not coming?" Ben asks when Oliver veers in another direction.

"No, not yet. Gonna check on the horses."

"You okay?"

"I don't know," Oliver wants to say, but says, "Totally," instead.

"Alright, door's unlocked. Just let yourself in. I'll leave you some sheets on the couch."

"Thanks."

"Night, Oliver."

"Night."

* * *

 

Oliver makes several circuits around the Kingdom, waiting to get tired, avoiding going to Benjamin’s place and staying awake all night worrying about Carol. In the distance, insects are chirping and farm animals are crooning, except one goat that sounds like it's choking on a frog — Oliver goes and checks on it; it's fine. He doesn't notice the boy in the enclosure until his timid voice says, “Billy is very strange...” from the darkness, and Oliver jumps out of his skin. He can't quite make out a face, just a Chinese accent. "She is getting over a cold.”

“Billy?”

“The goat. Billy goat. Her name is Billy.”

“Got it...” Oliver fumbles over what to say. “You must like them all. Giving them names.”

“Hm. I look after them with Huan, my uncle,” he, Joey Song Oliver was sure, says. Oliver sees dark hair. He sounds nervous. "You are newcomer, yeah?"

“M-hm.”

"I saw you fight, today. Brutal nut-shot." There's an awkward silence until Joey asks, “Did you get taught to fight, too? I... saw your friend teaching Benjamin, before.”

Oliver shakes his head no.

“Well, you were brave,” Joey says. “Very good...”

"Sorry for letting some of the goats loose."

Joey makes an  _eh_  noise, and after another awkward silence, leaves, and Oliver, a little disorientated, goes the other way. At some point not long later, someone calls out, “Little dude!" to him across the vegetable patch.

It's Jerry, beaming as he waves Oliver over to him.

"Hey, Jerry."

"What's happenin'?" he chirps.

"Nothing," Oliver says, meeting him at a bench, "just out for a walk."

"Why you looking so bummed out?"

"I'm not."

Jerry squints at him. "Is it a chick? It's gotta be a chick. No man wanders at night like that unless it's over a chick."

"It's nothing," Oliver lies. "I'm just not sleeping very well."

Jerry makes a hmm noise, taking out of his pocked a small glass instrument. It looks like a funny bottle stopper, but it's hollow. Jerry rubs ash out of one end. "How was the flick?" he asks, taking out a small box with what looks like dry broccoli inside. Oliver can smell it.

"Yeah... it was great. Err... could I?"

“Oh. Yeah! Sharing is caring.” At Jerry's request, Oliver takes a seat with him on the bench, overlooking the vegetable patch. Oliver tries not to be too obvious while he watches Jerry set up. Jerry's fingers are so large herbs sprinkle over his red pants. "It's all domestic — organic too. Grow it right here in the Kingdom. Out of reach of the ankle biters though, duh."

Oliver thinks 'ankle biters' means 'walkers' but from the context he realises Jerry is talking about children.

"Oh. Yeah," he says, "uh, gnarly."

"Right on," Jerry grins, lighting up. He takes the first hit, and the second, slowly. His mouth is stretched into a lazy smug grin and smoke falls between his teeth while he hands everything over to Oliver. Oliver holds the glass and lighter in his palm.

" Uh. I can't, um..." He smiles wanly. "I don't have a..."

"Right," Jerry says, then giggles at the pun. Oliver rolls his eyes and keeps the piece steady to his lips while Jerry mans the lighter for him. He smokes, but must not do it right because it makes him cough. Jerry pats his back, laughing. "You gotta go steady, little dude. Or you just suck buds."

Oliver groans.

"Dig?" Jerry asks.

"What?"

"Do you dig?"

"Oh." Oliver realises  _dig_  means  _understand_ ; Patrick used to say it. "Uh. Yeah. Dig."

He tries again, holding the glass while Jerry lights. The herbs crackle softly and smoke fills the cylinder. Oliver inhales, slowly, and Jerry grins and takes the lighter back. Oliver sees the smoke disappear through his lips and when he puts the pipe down he doesn't know if he feels any different yet, except for how much he wants to cough, so he does. Jerry lets him take another hit, tells him to hold it for longer in his chest. Doesn't cough this time. Still, Oliver's pretty sure it's not working. He doesn't complain, however, just hands it back and sits and watches Jerry smoke, and at some point starts laughing at him, and then he realises how strange he feels. Really,  _really_  strange. He looks at the way the world is moving, the way the leaves in the garden shudder in the breeze behind him, their veins lit up by a lamp on the stand. The flame inside moves all sped up and slowed down at the same time, and the detail — he doesn't know if things have always been this defined or if he's just never paid so much attention to it all. His body feels like it's buffering, or melting. Colours are bright and loud, even in the night's quiet. He hears bats squeaking overhead and feels the earth orbiting the sun under his feet.

" _Whoa..._ "

Jerry is humming a song and smoking more. The sound and smoke leaves his nose all stretched and compressed in time, until, to Oliver, it feels like it takes ten years for Jerry to inhale real air again.

When Jerry says, "Chiiiiiiillll," it makes Oliver's whole world laugh, and he keeps on laughing while Jerry lets him have another turn. Oliver can barely keep his mouth still enough to keep the glass steady. His eyes are watering.

"Do you feel that?" Oliver asks, using the bandage around his amp to wipe his face. His tongue feels completely in his mouth, and his glasses feel wholly on the bridge of his nose. "It feels..." He doesn't have the words. He feels like he's lost control but like he totally hasn't, too. He feels like he exists, completely — absolutely lost but totally found, too.

Jerry says, "Yeah, man..." even though Oliver didn't finish his sentence.

Oliver’s thoughts are uncoiling and tumbling around him too slowly and fastly and everythingly for him to keep a hold on them, so he thinks of something else, only he thinks so much he's not sure he's even thinking anything at all, and then, finally, one thought floats past his face and he grabs onto it, still laughing his ass off.

"Hey, Jerry?"

"Sup, little dude?"

Oliver doesn't know why Jerry always calls him this. He honestly isn't very little anymore. Oliver's as tall as Morgan and his shoulders are broad and his chest and arms and legs are sturdy and strong and hairy. Though, compared to Jerry, Oliver guesses he is a pretty little dude.

Jerry thumps Oliver's shoulder to get his attention back from the tree trunk he's staring down. Jerry says, "Lay it on me,” and Oliver picks up the pile of air in front of him and places it over Jerry's stomach. Jerry crumples up laughing.

Oliver laughs, too, then sits back. "I don’t know what I was saying.”

Jerry busts out laughing again, clapping.

"Doesn't matter," Oliver giggles, "I got something else."

"Yeah, man?"

"Yeah."

Jerry waits.

Oliver giggles. "Hold on... I can’t hear... My brain.”

Jerry doubles forward cracking up and Oliver does, too. He sits on the floor. His thoughts listen to him better down here. He looks up to the night sky and stretches his arms out above his head to let all his thoughts collapse down on him, and after a moment, they do.

"I've killed a Savior."

Jerry squints, even though the sky’s pitch black, his face all lit by lantern light.

"It was, I don't know, almost a week ago. We heard about them from..." Oliver grins when he thinks about Jesus and his fluorescent eyes, but he's forgotten what he was saying again so he starts somewhere else. "We killed all of them, Jerry. They had us holed up in this slaughterhouse. Beat us and threatened to kill us and stuff, 'cause... 'cause we just got done killing a bunch of them... Shot two. Fed one lady to the walkers. Another one...  _Man,_  she got her face crushed in so bad, and the rest... we burned them alive  _'on the Kill Floor'_." Oliver put on Paula's voice for that.

"Whoa," Jerry says. "That's heavy."

" _So_  heavy," Oliver concurs, laughing again. Actually, Oliver's not sure he's stopped laughing at all. He's worried he never will, which makes him laugh even more, and then he whispers loudly, "I can't eat pork anymore, Jerry."

Jerry giggles all low and rumbly and Oliver has to hold onto the bench seat so he doesn't get blown away. He gets an adrenaline rush and says, "Oh, jeez," and Jerry laughs even more.

" _Man,_  kid," he growls, "you're baked."

" _So_  baked," Oliver agrees. He watches smoke leave through Jerry's wide, grinning mouth. Finished now, Jerry tips the piece up-side down and scrapes the ash out with his pinkie, then puts it away in his pocket with the lighter and the tin box.

Oliver's starting to think about food now.

He stands up after however long it takes to mentally undress a grilled cheese sandwich; in his head it has tomatoes in it, and chicken, and crazy cheese and regular cheese and M&M's. There's ranch sauce and potato chips and red peppers and ham, peanut butter, strawberry jelly, oh,  _God,_  and more crazy cheese. Oliver's swallows even though his mouth is very dry. He's steadier than he thought he would be.

"Thanks for the drugs, sir."

This probably sounds lamer out of his head, like he maybe should have said it  _weed_  or  _grass_  or...  _maui wowie_?

"Totally," Jerry says anyway, holding up two fingers. "Deuces."

Oliver laughs and puts two fingers up, too. "Deuces."

He turns and walks back towards the infirmary, still giggling enough he has to wipe his eyes occasionally. Inside Carol's room, he realises he's not sleeping here anymore, so he leaves. Nobody is here but this doesn't mean they aren't still watching. Oliver's freaking himself out. Ben's place isn't far away. Only then Oliver starts to worry that Ben doesn’t want him there. What if he turns him away?

He spends a while pacing up and down the outdoor corridor, startling at every sound. That damned goat with the weird froggy bleat is driving him insane. He thinks he's going to die. He tells himself he is, somehow, and after several long minutes sitting on the step outside the theatre with his head bowed in his arms between his knees, Oliver finally gets up and goes back to Jerry.

When he gets to the vegetable patch, it's not just Jerry who's here. All at once Ezekiel and Carol are walking out of the recreation garden enclosure together and Oliver is screwed. Totally screwed. It’s the first time Carol's seen him since Alexandria. He forces nonchalance and tries to calm down. Carol, on the other hand, suddenly looks as though she’s been slapped.

"Fair maiden," Ezekiel says, bowing in her direction, "with this, er,  _convenience,_ " meaning Oliver's untimely, and squinty, entrance, "I think it best if you'd excuse us. I will explain to Oliver the significance of our discussion tonight, like you have requested."

Carol nods, watching Oliver, and he's watching her and trying not to feel like something really bad is about to happen, but he's shaking and wishing she would help him.

“I’ll see you,” she says.

Oliver says nothing because he doesn’t believe her.

She frowns, sniffing. "Is that – Can I smell – Oliver, are you high?"

"Yes," he says, "very high."

Ezekiel stutters.

"And I think I'm having a mild heart attack," Oliver adds, hand to sternum.

Jerry slaps him on the back. "You're not dying, little dude."

A very serious discussion takes place between the three adults. Carol is arguing. Jerry is apologising. Ezekiel is circumventing. Oliver is still convinced he's going to get hit by lighting or a meteorite or a sudden freak hail shower, until finally, Ezekiel is able to defuse the situation.

"It's gonna be okay, Oliver," Carol says, and then tells Ezekiel, “Look after him,” and walks away. Oliver can't make sense of what's going on. He's still nodding to Carol even though she's gone. He startles when Ezekiel touches his shoulder.

"Settle, young warrior..." He turns to Jerry and frowns. "Jerry, your recreational habits evade my favour but I allow you to indulge in them anyway. You have proven your benevolence to me, and I respect that. All I ask in return is that you not influence others to partake."

Jerry dips his head like a scolded dog.

"Where's Shiva?" Oliver asks.

"Resting."

"Aw.”

"Oliver," Ezekiel says, "come with me, if you would be so kind. I trust you are coherent enough to understand me, correct?"

"Correct, sir," Oliver answers. He goes to sit but shoots up again. " _King._  Sorry."

Ezekiel sighs.

“Gentlemen,” he says, “this may be a  _long_  night."

* * *

 

The next morning, Oliver, Morgan and Carol ride a few miles out from the Kingdom, keeping the sun to their left and following the arrows in trees and sign-posts that Morgan left. The stretch of road they're on is long and covered in leaves and dirt, and a dead walker is sprawled across the front lawn, which doubles as a graveyard.

"You're sure this is what you want, right?" Morgan asks.

"I am," Carol answers.

They halt their horses outside of the small house. There's a white rusty fence and a mail box with the flag up and an arrow pointing the way to Alexandria carved into the post; another sign Morgan left.

Oliver wasn't going to come. It wasn’t that he didn’t prefer this option for Carol, it was just a lot to take in. Last night, Ezekiel eventually took him back to Ben's when Oliver kept complaining about how hungry he was, so Ben let him eat while Ezekiel explained everything. He explained that Oliver was right, Carol  _was_  going to leave the Kingdom, but she would live nearby. Oliver was so stoned he just curled up on the couch and cried for a while. It was harder to stop crying than usual. Ezekiel had to go get Morgan. And when Morgan came he just hugged him, and Oliver stood there, with these two strong arms wrapped around his shoulders and the kind of coos in his ear his own father never gave him, and he clung to Morgan's chest and cried until he was empty. And after a long time, when it was almost dawn, Oliver passed out on the floor with a blanket over his front and they were all able to get a few hours of sleep before morning.

Oliver doesn't know how Ezekiel did it; convinced Carol to stay and not stay. He thinks it's because of Ezekiel's many secrets. He thinks that it's because Ezekiel told her them all, and he thinks it worked because, unlike her and Oliver, Ezekiel is using his secrets for good, to give hope, to make people feel good and in turn it making himself feel good, too.

He sits in the saddle of a chestnut gelding, watching Morgan talk.

"It's up to you, Carol. It should have always been up to you."

Morgan climbs down, drops his staff by the mail box, and walks around to help Carol dismount. Oliver gets down when Carol walks around to him. She hugs him long and hard, then steps back to look at him. Oliver's heart is breaking, but he knows this is the best she can do. She's replanting herself. All this time Oliver was blaming himself for picking her Cherokee rose, but it wasn't him. It wasn't. The whole world was wilting her. But now, finally, maybe she can grow.

"Okay?" Morgan asks.

Carol nods, flipping reins over her horse's head and exchanging them for her backpack. "Got it," she says.

"Stay there," Morgan tells their horses.

Oliver follows Morgan and Carol towards the gate. Carol looks excited to be here:— _“She's embracing the contradiction,”_  Ezekiel explained.  _“She's finding the sweet beneath the bitter. She's going away without going away.”_

"It's good we're here," she says.

"How's that?" Morgan asks.

"Ten more minutes, and I might start to regret all the times I tried to shoot and stab you.”

Morgan grins like he thinks she's the most fascinating creature in the universe because he does. He tells her, "I think you're my favourite person I ever knocked out. Definitely top two or three."

Carol chuckles, then reaches down to grab his staff from the ground. She walks over to Oliver, hesitates at first, and then she kisses his forehead. Oliver feels his head spinning and his chest swelling and then he does one of the easiest things he's ever done in his life.

He tells her, "I love you."

"I love you," she tells him, and Oliver can feel it. That calm and warm wave washing over him. "I love you so much, Oliver." They pull away and Carol holds his cheeks in her hands, wiping his tears away. He pulls himself together.

"Take care of yourself," Morgan tells her.

"I will." She sniffs.

"Do you promise?" he asks.

"Always watching, always ready, remember?"

"I do."

"Okay."

She lets them both mount up again before she hands Morgan back his staff, and then she enters her new home and shuts the gate behind her. Morgan and Oliver ride back for the Kingdom, though not before Morgan uses his staff to put down the red flag on the mail box, because there is nothing to worry about here. Carol is safe and she is going to be okay, and that's enough right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not encourage smoking weed. Then again, I don't really discourage it either. Live your life, you know?
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	115. Season 7 ~ Service: Scrambled Eggs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back in Alexandria now

While I lay in bed and read, there’s a knock at my door and Enid enters my room with a steaming bowl in her hand.

"Brought eggs..."

“I’m not hungry,” I say.

"Come on. They're scrambled."

I say nothing to her, just keep reading.

She sighs. "If you don't eat them, Bean will."

With a sigh, I take the bowl and stuff my face. Bean groans at my feet. I stop after a second and look at Enid sitting at my desk, looking at an unfinished drawing of Denise. I frown. "Did you eat?"

"Yeah," she says. "Had the other half."

I finish the bowl and set it aside on the bedside, then sit back again with my book.

"Michonne left early," Enid says, “I saw her heading for the gate with a bag. She hasn't found anything for days... not since the car. Got my hat, didn’t get me."

I shut my eyes. “She isn’t looking anymore.”

She sighs like she knows this.

"You know, the other day I saw her up on the guard post," she says. "She was just flipping her katana around with one hand, spinning it all over the place, like... like she didn't even realise she was doing it. Just staring out on the road. It was going so fast, like the blades on a helicopter. And... I couldn't believe she kept all her fingers." She scoffs and shakes her head. "It was so cool."

I don’t say anything.

Enid sighs again.

“We need Daryl,” she says. “If he were here, he’d be able to follow Oliver’s tracks.”

“Yeah,” I mumble. “We need a lot of things right now.”

I shuffle off the bed and collect my things.

"Gonna go for a walk...” I say, because walking makes me feel better, like fences make me feel better, and pudding and grapes and keeping a Ventolin inhaler in my pocket for no reason. Walking helps me figure things out. The longer the walk the more impossible the problem.

“Want me to come?” Enid asks.

I shake my head, and then I leave. It isn’t a long walk, not because the problem is solved but because I am interrupted.

“Little pig, little pig! _Let. Me. In._ ”

I stand there, stunned with fear. They’re early.

"HOT DIGGETY  _DOG!_ " I hear a few moments later, as I’m making my way to the gate. "This place is  _magnificent!_ An _embarrassment_ of riches, as they say. Yes, sir, I do believe you’re gonna have _plenty_ to offer up."

Saviors begin spilling into Alexandria. Daryl among them, wearing pale overalls labelled with an orange ‘A’, bruised and sweaty and filthy, and not speaking.

Negan laughs.

Quickly, I head for the clinic, hearing, “Move out!” behind me. I pass Gabriel on my way, who looks nervous and smiley and has dirt on his pants that he makes a wan effort to wipe.

As I rush in through the clinic doors, I start organising half of all the medicine. Someone needs to make sure they don’t take more than they’re due, and soon I hear them coming and then two men, one tall and the other shorter, push the door open and lean inside.

"Mind if we come inside?"

"Yes," I say, back turned. “I’m not finished sorting yet. I’ll leave your half on the porch.”

I hear laughing and turn in time to see them both sauntering in and scooping things off shelves. The shorter guy pushes me aside and takes the box I’m filling, too.

"What are you doing?"

"What's it look like?"

“Stop!”

He doesn't, so my gun comes up.

“Davey...” the taller guy warns.

" _Pfft..._ " Davey sneers. “Grow up, kid.”

I shoot the wall between their heads. Someone curses. Then the clinic is very quiet and they are both watching me.

“Easy...”

"Put some back!" I order, pulling back the hammer. "Or the next one goes in you."

Davey laughs. "Kid... what do you think happens next?"

"You  _die_."

Dad's here, suddenly.” Carl... Carl, put it down...” He has a hand up and his other hand is holding Lucille by his ankle. Negan's close behind him, grinning.

"No," I growl, sick of this. "He's taking all of our medicine. They said only _half_ our stuff!"

"Of course!" Negan laughs. " _Oh-ho._ Really, kid?"

"You should go," I tell him, aim still raised, "before you find out how dangerous we  _all_  are."

"Well, pardon me, young man! Excuse the shit out of my fucking French, but did you just threaten me? Look, I get threatening Davey here, but I can't have it. Not him, not me—"

"Carl, just put it down," Dad hisses.

I ignore him.

Negan doesn't.

"Don't be  _rude_ , Rick!" he says, eyes on me. "We are having a conversation here."

I hate him.

"Now, boy, where were we?" Negan asks. "Oh, yeah. Your giant,  _man-sized_  balls..."

He's doing that thing again. Standing and moving with his hips first. I try to mimic him. Show I'm not scared.

"No threatening us," Negan instructs. "Listen, I like you — so I don't want to go hard proving a point here. You don't want that. I said half your shit, and 'half' is what I say it is. I'm serious. Do you want me to _prove_ how serious? Again?"

My head fills with nightmares I haven't shaken since Glenn and Abraham. I shiver, and my arm drops, a breath leaving me sharp and stretched and furious as I hand my firearm over to Dad. He’s staring at me, tears suspending on his eyelashes.

Negan takes the gun himself.

"You know, Rick, this whole thing reminds me that you have _a lot_ of guns," he says. "There's all the guns you took from my outpost when you _wasted_ all my people with a shit-ton of your own guns, and I'm bettin' there's even more, which adds up to an absolute _ass-load_ of guns, and as this little emotional outburst just made crystal fucking clear, I can't allow that."

Dad looks at me.

I shrivel.

"They're all mine now," Negan tells him, "so tell me, Rick. Where are my guns?"

Dad leaves and Negan follows him. The two other men are still here and I watch them take everything except a few pain killers and aspirin, very carefully not thinking about what I’m hiding in my pocket. Outside, trucks are rolling around the whole community, Saviors coming and going out of homes as they please while everyone else stands aside and watches.

A gunshot makes me startle. I wait for the screams but none come.

Across from the brownstone apartments, outside the pantry, a truck is parked and Saviors load it up with our guns. Dad and Negan are there, talking about the RPG:— “Look at this! It was you guys that took out Little Timmy and the Dick Brigade?! Wow, Rick! Getting in your last licks! Oh, man, I’m gonna have some _fun_ with this!”

Dad looks wrecked.

"They aren't taking the food," Enid, suddenly standing next to me with Bean at her heel, says, "just the guns."

Gabriel meets us, pant leg still dirty.

"I dug an empty grave," he tells us. "Negan wanted to take Maggie, so... I improvised."

"Must be nice," Enid says, "digging a grave you know's gonna stay empty."

Gabriel smiles.

Suddenly, Olivia is being dragged out of the armoury by a woman with brown skin and dark curly hair and dyed blond ends.

“Arat...” Negan points a finger. “We don’t do that, unless they do something to _deserve_ it.”

“Yeah, we went through the inventory,” Arat says, handing over Olivia’s notebook. Negan reads through. They’re talking but I can’t hear much from here, just, “They’re short. A Glock nine and a twenty-two Bobcat.”

“Is that true?” Negan asks.

“We had some people leave town, the guns are probably—”

“So Olivia sucks at her job, is that what you’re saying?” Negan asks him, and they keep talking about it, until Negan gets up in Olivia’s face and tell her, “I don't enjoy killing women. Men — I can waste them all the live long. But at the end of the day, Olivia, my dear, this was _your_ responsibility."

"We can work this out," Dad says.

"Oh, yes, we can!" Negan shouts. "And I'm going to. _Right now_."

Olivia whimpers.

"This was your job, and _you_ fucked up," Negan growls at her. "Keeping track of guns? That shit is life and death."

I think Olivia is going to die. I think Negan is going to grab Lucille from Dad's hand and splatter her across the asphalt. I get the urge to launch across the street and stand between them, like I can stop it, and then, very slowly, Negan slides his arm around Olivia’s shaking shoulders, pulls, and strolls away with her.

"Gather your people, Rick," he orders over his shoulder, grinning. "You've got some investigating to do!"

* * *

 

Several minutes later, we're all sitting in the church. Outside the doors, two pairs of Savior shoulders are keeping guard. Dad sets Lucille on the window-ledge and turns to us and asks us who took the guns, but nobody steps forward.

"I thought about hiding some of the guns,” he says. “I did it before. I figured I could bury some out there. Maybe we don't touch them for years..."

"Years?" Tobin asks.

"That's right," Dad says. "But what if the Saviors find those guns? What if we run into them when we have them on us?"

He walks down the aisle, then back to the alter, slowly.

"One of us dies. Maybe more than that. Maybe a lot more. Doesn't matter how many bullets we have. It isn't enough. They win. It's that black-and-white. Hiding a couple of guns isn't the answer, not anymore. We don't have to like it, but we need to give them over."

The church is silent.

"A Glock nine, and a twenty-two. That's what they're looking for. Who has it?"

"Oliver took his Glock, when he ran away,” someone says, “he could’ve taken the twenty-two as well?"

"No," Dad says, "it wasn't him. Olivia marked off what he took when we realised he was gone.” I can feel people’s eyes on me but I avoid looking at anybody. "Someone knows where they are or they know who does," Dad goes on. "If we don't find them, they're gonna kill Olivia. They'll do it."

"Why do they care?" Scott asks. "Two guns aren't a threat to them. But those guns could help protect us from whatever else is out there."

"Do you have them?"

"Wish I did."

Dad shakes his head. "Most of you weren't there. You didn't have to watch. You can look away now when someone else dies or you can help solve this. We give them what they want, and we live in peace."

Behind me, Aaron and Eric are whispering.

Eric stands up. "Say we find the guns. How are we gonna get out of this, Rick?"

"There is no way out of this," Dad says. "Let me put this to all of you as clearly as I can. I'm not in charge anymore. Negan is."

It's one thing thinking it, but it's another hearing it.

"Now, who has the guns?"

Again, the church falls silent — that sticky kind where you can feel people sizing you up, trying to read your face, trying to find someone to blame. Eugene is who speaks first.

"Not everyone's here."

* * *

 

Dad spends all day searching Spencer's house, as he’s out with Rosita finding Daryl's bike for Dwight. Spencer's stolen food before, so taking a gun isn't unlikely.

Mr. and Mrs. Miller look after Judith for me while Enid and I go back home in time to watch my house getting stripped. Furniture too. Enid keeps her head down. Up, through the window of the second house, I see movement in Oliver’s bedroom. Enid grabs my arm to stop me.

“I need to get something,” I tell her. “Stay here.”

“What? N—”

I'm already walking inside, upstairs. They’re carrying Oliver’s bed out of his room, pushing me aside as they try to get to the stairs but I slip under the frame and go into his room. I root through drawers. Where is it? Where is it?

“Sorry about your room, pal,” one guy mocks me, picking up one of Oliver’s CDs and snapping it in half. I ignore him, even when he starts ripping up the things on Oliver’s wall. When I find what I’m looking for, the man snatches it from me.

He grimaces. “Oh, ho, ho...”

I try to snatch it back but he’s too quick.

“This your boyfriend?”

“No,” I say, face burning. “He’s just...”

“What, no homo?” He laughs, turning the photo of Oliver and I kissing around so I can see it. “Hate break it to you, kid... but this looks a little homo.”

“Give it back. Just — Just give it back, man.”

“Or what, faggot?”

I shove him and he pushes me back so hard I hit a shelf. Books fall over my head and the guy is saying things but I'm not hearing him. I'm just watching him hold up the photo, lighter in his other hand, and burn it.

Ash and dust floats down before me and my mouth is on the floor.

I look up, furious.

"Oops," Davey pouts, "shame about that."

He leaves. I don’t know how long I sit there, watching the ash, but finally I wipe my face and go outside. Birds are chirping in the trees and the sun is hanging in the lazy evening sky.

Enid is gone.

My stomach drops. I hurry to the pantry, hoping she’ll be at her house, and I find her behind followed outside by Davey. Bean spots him and twists around, trying to sniff but Davey swats him away.

“What did you take?” he accuses. “Little girl, I’m talking to you!”

“Nothing,” she answers, turning to him and shrugging. “They’re mine.”

“Doesn’t matter if it’s yours,” he says, getting far too close while several other Savior men gather around. “What’s yours is ours now... so hand it over.”

She glares at them, then pushes several green, rubbery things into Davey’s hands. My dad is leaving Spencer’s house then, a sack with something heavy inside — guess he found the guns. He watches Enid and Davey, too.

Davey is laughing. "Balloons? You going to a party, little girl?"

"Can I keep them, please?" she asks dryly, rolling her eyes. "It's just — Let me keep them."

"Say please again, little girl."

She inhales. "Please..."

Davey strokes her cheek and she flinches.

"One more time," he says.

" _Please,_ " she hisses.

He drops the balloons at her feet, pointing in her face and whispering, "Be careful, little girl."

Furious, I look at Dad.

"They'll be gone soon," is all he says.

Too mad to speak to him, I turn back to Enid and watch her. She takes back the balloons. Davey and the other Saviors go on taunting her and asking questions that make her cross her arms and watch the ground. One guy tries to pet Bean but he growls at him.

"What you got for me, Rick?"

Dad hands over the sack and Negan empties the missing guns into his palm.

"Well, would you look at that? They were here after all!" he cheers. "Funny how a little,  _'Holy fuck! Somebody's gonna die!'_  lights a fire under everybody's ass!"

Olivia is crying.

"So, tell me, Rick. Which one of your _fine_ folks almost cost Olivia the rest of her days?"

"It doesn't matter anymore."

"No, it matters," Negan says. "See, you need to get _everybody_ on board.  _Everybody._ Or, we just go right back to square one."

* * *

 

Before long, the truck is full of our guns, along with several other trucks filled with medicine and boxes of furniture and stacks of mattresses. Enid doesn't look at me, and decides to go home while the Saviors drive to the gates, and once I get there, too, Dad’s outside speaking to Michonne, who’s hiding in one of the burned houses, and when they come back, she gives up a deer she’d hunted earlier, and the rifle she’d used to kill it.

Negan calls Dad special for being so cooperated, that they’ll come back soon or Lucille will ‘have her way’:—“In case you haven’t caught on. I just slid my dick down your throat, and you _thanked_ me for it.”

I leave, and find myself in Oliver’s room. It’s trashed. Things are missing and broken. All the books and comics and the photographs. They’re nothing. Just stories. Just like him.

I catch a look at myself in the mirror and realise I'm crying. I wipe my face and soot comes off on my cheeks. And then I’m throwing things out the window. I don't know how long later Michonne starts calling out to me. Some comes up and takes in the state of his bedroom, watches the Foundations fly from my hand out across the roof. Then I just sit on the window-ledge and put my head in my hands and don't say anything. Michonne's looking at me, like she doesn't know what to say to me. I wouldn't either.

Then she just sits on the window-ledge with me, a hand on my shoulder.

"I know you don’t look for him anymore...” I sniff, feeling all blocked up like a plug. “I’m... I’m sorry you lost the deer.”

“I’m sorry, too,” she says. “I am... about...”

“I know,” I say. “I know he’s dead.”

“Carl—”

“I know,” I say again. “Morgan told Dad not to look for him if he didn't come back. But Morgan would have come back if Oliver found him. Carol, too. They just would have.”

"Carl..."

"Something went wrong," I say over her, blank like a wall. “They aren't coming back.”

Michonne holds me and breathes into the top of my head, and finally we go next door, where I get to making my bed — nothing but a sleeping bag and a pillow on the floor.

Dad and Michonne are talking outside from their room.

"They took our mattresses — most of them."

"The rifle I used was one of theirs from the outpost,” Michonne says. “They didn't have a list. We could've hidden more."

"Did you?"

Michonne sighs. "No... Everything we have, we got from fighting."

"I made the choice. There aren't enough of us. It's about numbers."

"There's the Hilltop."

"They'd still have the _numbers_. We play by their rules, and we get some kind of life."

"What _kind_ of a _life?!_ "

I’ve never heard them fight before. They’re fighting like Mom and Dad did before, when Dad wouldn’t speak and my mom thought he didn’t care. But he does speak now. He tells Michonne about Shane, how he was his friend, his partner, how he saved me and Mom and how they were together, Shane and Mom.

"I know Judith isn't mine. I know it. I love her. She's my daughter. But she isn't mine. I had to accept that. I did, so I could keep her alive. I'll die before she does, and I hope that's a long time from now so I can raise her and protect her and teach her how to survive. This is how we live _now_. I had to accept that, too, so I could keep everyone else alive."

"It's not your  _fault_  when people die, Rick."

"Not always, but sometimes — sometimes it is. You have to accept this. All of us do. Or it won't work."

"I'm gonna try."

Some time later, when the sun has set, Enid comes over and tells me that she and Olivia found Scab in the pantry freezer. “Arat put him in there, probably. He was all stiff. We thought he was dead. I think he was, for a while.”

“Oh my God.”

"Olivia had to put the hairdryer on him."

“And he’s okay?”

“Yeah. Hopefully. She’s taking care of him now.”

I sit on my sleeping bag and stare at the window for a while. Enid leans her head back on the wall, green balloons squeaking between her fingers. She sighs and looks around the room.

"They took everything."

“Yeah...”

She falls asleep before long. For a while, I lose myself doodling no a scrap piece of paper, and in the end I only stop when I realise Enid has woken up, watching. I let her pick up the picture. It’s not very clear but I drew a tiny girl holding onto a big bouquet of helium balloons, getting lifted up, but holding on to one of the lines so she doesn’t get carried away.

"Is it me?” she asks.

I nod.

“Cool," she says.

I blush — when you become fluent in  _Enid_ you start to understand that when she says  _cool_ it means something more than just  _cool_ to her.

"Maybe I'll let go soon," she whispers.

"Of what?" I ask, but she doesn't answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HUGE thank you to BloodGutsandChocolatePudding aka. ronweasleytho on Tumblr for letting me use the prompt idea you posted a while back. Enid being Michonne's biggest fan is so great. Also, blame TheDarkerSide123 for the frozen Scab incident. He made me do a thing (look after myself) one (far more than one) time and so I wrote that in spite of him but actually thanks lots just know Bean was this close to becoming dog meat.
> 
> P.S. I once had a cat who hid in the gap behind/inside our fireplace all the time, and one day we lit it without checking and heard a huge hiss and the cat flew out at us (she was okay, just spooked – and almost roasted…)
> 
> Anyway...
> 
> Happy reading.


	116. Season 7 ~ Go Getters: Flying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's been a small time stretch, and also Tara's home half an episode early - if you think I'm up to something then you're right, and if you think despite that, that I also have no clue wtf I'm doing, then oh boy you're right, my friend.

In the month after out mattresses were burned, Tara came back, alone, saying she lost Heath and Noah on a bridge and found nothing of them but some tracks and a note that read ‘PPP’. She spends a lot of time at the clinic or in her apartment, alone, reading _War and Peace,_ or helping us collect things for the Saviors, who have been back every week to bleed us dry — taking food now, too.

The next collection is in three days and Dad's leaving for an overnight run with Aaron to find anything they can. Before they go, Dad visits me and ask me to come with. Michonne and Aaron wait outside my room.

"Somebody's gotta be here for Judith," I say, throwing darts at my dartboard and missing.

He tells me someone else will, that:—"we'll only be gone a few days at most."

 _I have plans,_ I think, but carefully don't speak. I throw again, miss.

"We need supplies," Dad insists. "They're gonna be comin' back soon."

“Is this how it’s gonna be now?” I hiss, holding back the— _‘being Negan’s bitch?’_ The other day Negan called him that again, and the time before that he got Dad to kneel for him. I throw another dart, miss — _dammit!_

"Yes," Dad says, "it is. You know that."

I throw the last dart, miss, and with a sharp sigh, cross my bedroom and take the darts back, not looking at the three people in my room while I say, "See you in a few days."

Dad sighs. "We should get going."

"He'll come around," I hear Aaron outside, and Dad tells Michonne they're headed north, giving her a walkie for if she changes her mind, too.

"Good luck," she tells him.

"See you soon," he tells her, and they kiss and I turn away and miss another four times, and later, when they're gone, I go downstairs and sit backwards on a chair in the dining room, watching Michonne fill up her pack. She's going out to scavenge, back by tomorrow.

"Why didn't you go with my dad?" I ask her.

"I have to figure some things out."

I step off the chair and follow her into the kitchen. "What is there to figure out?"

"How we can do this," she answers. " _If_  we can."

"We  _can't,_ " I gripe. "Not like this."

"Your dad thinks differently."

"And he's wrong — you  _know_  it."

She does. I can see it in her face. She walks past me towards the door and slings the pack over her shoulder, turning back. "Even if I... _think_ he is. I don't  _know_." She’s leaving. "Change your bandage later. And be  _nice_  to Olivia." Olivia and I haven’t been getting along lately; she keeps accusing me of spending too much time with Enid.

The door shuts and I'm left alone, and at some point, I go to the window, sigh, and march outside into the cold, early morning, small fog clouds forming in front of my mouth. "Enid..."

She's climbing the wall, not looking back at me. "I need to see Maggie."

"You're walking to Hilltop? It's far."

"I'll be fine."

"Maybe..."

"I'll be fine!" She looks at me, shrugging. "I have better aim than you...”

I look at the ground.

She sighs. “I didn't mean it that way."

"I'm not saving you anymore," I tell her.

"That what happened in the armoury? You saved me? You saved Oliver trapping him in the laundry room?"

"Yeah..."

She shakes her head. " _You_ made it back in one piece. You're still here—"

“He's not. And... I'm not talking about that."

She watches me. "I'm sorry you had to see it."

"I'm not."

Then she disappears over the other side of the wall and I'm going back inside, pacing the living room, thinking I meant it, before — I'm not saving her anymore. I've done enough trying, for them both. But Oliver still left and now Enid's leaving me, too and — and I'm sick of it. I'm sick of this being the the way it is. The Saviors’ fault. My fault.

I get up, check Judith's asleep, then grab my stuff and leave, too.

* * *

 

Stealing a car is easy. It's no surprise Carol and Oliver were able to do it on separate occasions within the same twenty-four hours. Nobody’s even on watch right now — since we know who the biggest threat is now. I take Dad's keys and drive the car right out of the gate with enough confidence to close it behind myself, without a soul noticing, and the driving is sticky and I'm not sure how much I remember and a lot of it I figure out myself, but I do okay.

A mile later, I only realise Bean's following me when I see him sprinting after the car in the wingmirror. "Dammit..." I pull over and a pair of blistered paws hit the glass beside me. Bean's panting hard, leaving fog on the glass, looking like he might collapse. Sighing, I reach over to the passenger door and open it and he clambers across the seat — I have to help pull him in. I shut the door and get driving again, petting Bean when he puts his heavy head in my lap.

I sigh. "Let's go kill some Saviors."

I don't know where they are, but I do know that someone at Hilltop does. I also know Enid's going to take the same route Jesus mapped out, and since I don't know any other route, I follow it too, so it doesn't surprise me when I find her on the road by an old building, dismounting a blue bike and watching some walker follow after her. She can take it herself, I know. But if there's one thing I know how to do with a car, it's how to run down a walker.

"Bean, hold on!"

The corpse hits the car hood and disappears over the roof, leaving a dent and a big splatter of blood on the windscreen. I forget, however, to brake, so I ram right into a  _drive slow_ pillar. I manage to catch Bean before he flies through the glass. He struggles in my arms and through the rear-view mirror, I see the walker get up. Pushing Bean away, I switch to reverse and hit the gas — the car lurches backwards, crushing the walker against a wall.

Slowly, Enid pushes her bike to the window. I roll it down, thinking I’d probably look pretty cool right now if it weren’t for Bean clambering over me to get out and greet her. He vomits at her feet. She pets him until he stops crying.

She looks at me. "What are you doing here?"

I shrug and smile at her. "Felt like a drive."

Scrunching her face, she reaches into the car and pulls something out of my hair.

"What is it?" I ask.

She stares at her palm and whispers, "Dragonfly wing," and I don't know why this makes her look like she's just figured something important out, so I ask, and she just tells me, “I don’t know. He never told me what he wished for...”

* * *

 

The car doesn't start up again, so we walk. Enid brought another jacket that she lets me wear, but by the time it starts getting dark and we're around five or six miles farther, we’re both freezing. Hilltop’s only a few hours away, but we know we shouldn't be out in the open at night-time, so Enid helps me inside an mail post office by climbing up onto my shoulders to get in through the upstairs balcony, and once she lets me in from the inside, we find candles for light along with the flash-light in her backpack. She doesn't have any food but we can manage until tomorrow. While we set up a fire, Bean finds a mouse and eats everything but its tail. For the most part, Enid and I keep quiet. The fire we manage to light in a trash can keeps us warn if we feed it the cards on display or the bank bills in the mail slots; Enid won't let me burn the written letters — I guess for the same reason she kept that faded letter on the balloon.

In the firelight, she reads the letters and I switch on a radio I find. It's just white noise until I figure out how to switch it to CD, playing quietly an orchestra compilation already inside.

“ _Hrmph..._ ”

“No, no,” Enid whispers, breath fogging, “keep it on.”

I look at her. “Okay.”

Frost is starting to grow around the windows. Enid falls asleep after long. Sitting in a chair by the window, I listen to the music until the album finishes, and then it's very quiet. Peeking through blinds, I see nothing outside but the moon flickering in through clouds, hear crickets and the wind and trees — and something else like a possum or a raccoon, scuttling in the garbage.

After a few hours, Enid wakes up. I can't say I'm totally expecting it when Enid sits on my lap and wraps her arms around my shoulders, face in my neck, as if she might still be sleeping. I laugh quietly. Her nose is cold when it touches my collarbone.

“You should sleep somewhere more comfortable,” I whisper. “I’m not a very good bed."

"It's okay..." She yawns. “Not tired.”

“You’re lying.”

“No,” she whispers, “I’m not.”

The candles are burned out but the last few embers in the fire are still glowing — enough to see by. Enid leans off me and peeks through the blinds, then looks at me.

"Your bandage is dirty."

I pull it to make sure it’s sitting right. "Michonne told me to change it, but I forgot."

"Felt like a drive," Enid says.

We're quiet for a few minutes — the only noise is my foot rocking side to side against the peeling wallpaper under the window. After long, I'm asked, "Not sorry you saw it?"

I look up and see the moon in her eyes. Figures. Enid’s the kind of girl who’d keep the moon in her eyes.

"Yeah," I whisper. "I watched it. Both times. Didn't look away."

"Why?"

"'Cause, when it was happening, I knew that I needed to remember it, so when I have a chance to kill him, I wouldn't have a choice."

"I think I'd kill him, too."

I've never heard her say something like that.

"It's messed up, but..." She shakes her head. "It's how it works. You do things for the ones you love...  _loved_."

I look at Bean who's folded up asleep by the fire.

"It's not for them," I say, then wait for her to speak but she doesn’t, so I say, "I'm sorry I locked you in the armoury."

"I didn't need to see it. Oliver didn't."

Hearing someone say this to me is like getting released from a prison for a crime I didn't mean to commit. I'll never know if Oliver would have lived to come back with us in the RV. I'll never know if there was something I could have done to make him stay. I'll never get to tell him I'm sorry, or tell him — really tell him how I felt.

"I don't even know if she's okay," Enid adds, her voice strange.

"We'll get there."

"Yeah...” She sighs. “You should rest. I got this watch.”

* * *

 

 _Sometime in the night in the strange little mail room we found, Oliver visits. He stands there in front of me, hand in pocket._ _There are big dragonfly wings behind his back, small rainbows glistening between the veins, and his hair is made entirely of vine leaves and flowers, but I can't see his face much, just his light. Made of it from the inside out, translucent skin glowing softly in between heartbeats._

_I don’t say anything because I’m not sure if I have anything to say, even though before I’m sure I had a lot to say to him._

_“I wish...”_

_“You wish what?”_

_He’s going away._

_I reach out but catch nothing._

_"Please don't... Please don’t go."_

And then I open my eyes and the air is cold and the sun is waking up. My face is wet. I rub it. Enid is awake, watching me, her face all arched up like a bridge.

“Is it time to go?" she asks.

"Yeah."

“Okay.”

* * *

 

The walking is miserable and I know Enid is crying. She hasn't really stopped since we left, so I keep my distance, watching her back. I know it's me making her so upset. After Oliver and after Glenn and Abraham, and even Maggie... I think she knows what I'm doing here.

I wish more than anything that we could at least get to Hilltop on a good note.

Off to the side of the road, in the ditch, I see a dead body and decide to loot it. There's a backpack, and inside, nothing except two sets of roller-skates. Suddenly, I get an idea.

"Enid... stop."

I must fall ten times before we make it a hundred yards. Not Enid though. Enid gets the hang of it almost immediately. She skates like Oliver boards, like swimming downstream.

I stagger and Enid grabs my hand, laughing. Bean runs in circles around us. I almost fall again, but she keeps me on two legs, keeping hold, fingers locked.

"We did this last week," I decide to tell her, skating backwards even though I’m trying to face forward. "Me and Oliver, in Alexandria. He had his board and I took a bike."

"Was it fun?"

I smile. "Yeah."

The smile falls. "He said he hated me," I add. "That was the last thing Oliver told me."

She watches me, tugging a little when I almost lose my balance again.

We stop and stand very still.

“You’re still in love with him,” she says, and I say, “Yes,” and she shuts her eyes and lets out a long breath and tells me, “I think I am, too.”

I’m quiet.

“I never told you why we stopped,” she says. “But... I think that’s why. ‘Cause I knew I was. It wasn’t a big deal, when it was just kissing, but... then when we were... I just knew — I knew that Oliver wasn’t really there with me. And when it was over he was so sad.”

My eyes are welling, breath short and harsh.

“I never meant to hurt either of you,” she says.

“You didn’t,” I say, sniffing. “I... I’m not upset that you were both together. I just wish I’d done a better job at being there for him. For both of you.”

She smiles. “I think I would have liked that.”

I wipe my face, managing a smile back.

Enid takes my hand. "C’mon, Carl. Let’s get there."

* * *

 

Roller-skates off, we go through the forest until we see, through the tree-line, a small compound-looking plot of land, probably about the size of the front field back at the prison. The wall is made of thick wooden beams and a few Hilltop people are on top holding spears. Inside, over the wall, I see the top few floors and roof of a big fancy-looking building, like a hotel or museum.

 _Barrington House,_ Jesus said.

Savior trucks surround the front gate. My heart sits in my throat, hand on my knife. We stop at the edge of the tree cover.

"I don't think Negan is here," I say. "I don't see that black truck."

Bean sticks to Enid’s side, his eye watching them like a hawk. I spot Simon giving orders to the rest of his men.

"You weren't taking a drive," Enid says. "You weren't coming to get me."

"I can't let him get away with this. You know I can't."

"I know."

"Come with me... You wanna kill him, too. We can do it."

She shakes her head. "You said it. It would be for us. Not for Abraham. Not for Glenn. Not for Maggie, or Oliver... You're doing it for you."

"Yeah..."

Her stare snaps between bandage and eye, like I still have two.

"Say it all goes right," she whispers, "and you do it... How do you get away?"

"It wouldn't matter."

"It would to me."

She puts her forehead against mine, and I think that there are a million ways to tell someone you love them. It can be something as simple as a hug, or reminding someone to put a seatbelt on, or asking someone to dance, or sit and read comics until you fall asleep together. I think there are a million ways to say goodbye, too... but I’m only realising this now, so I tell Enid I love her, and I tell her goodbye, but I don't do it with words — I kiss her forehead, and then, after a second, I kiss her mouth too.

I understand it now. Why Oliver kisses her like that — like this. It does mean something, because Enid, she’s like fairy dust. You never really know how long she'll be around but you know when she's there because you're flying.

And then, gently, she puts me down on the ground again.

"Please don't go,” she whispers. "I don't wanna lose you, too."

"I'm just gonna go home."

"You're lying."

"No," I whisper, "I'm not."

Enid sighs.

"You shouldn't go," she says, "but I can't stop you..."

She walks away towards Hilltop, Bean beside her.

"I'll see you," I say.

"No," Enid answers, "you won't."

 _Yeah,_ I think, _I probably won't._

When she is gone and nobody is looking, I sneak into a truck and huddle into a hidey-spot behind a crate of fruit and vegetables and scotch. There's a crate of guns beside me. I know what I'm going to do. I also know I'm not making it out of this. And I think a small part of me is even counting on it, but not before a bullet is in Negan's skull.

As we're driving away from Hilltop, the truck shuddering under my knees and my mind racing a million miles a minute, I suddenly realise I'm not alone. A box is opened, by the sounds of it, and when I peek over the crate I'm hidden behind, I see Jesus —his trench coat and his beanie hat pouring a bottle of scotch out the open back of the truck.

I step out so he can see me.

"Hey."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think Carl has a thing about kissing people after they take him skating...
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	117. Season 7 ~ Sing Me a Song: Reek

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Very long chapter. There’s just so much to get down — a whole different world at the Sanctuary.

On the way, the truck stops because of some diversion mess up — from what we overhear. In the distance, Jesus and I can hear walkers, but mostly the voices outside: "Still going. Looks like the end of them, though."

"All damn night. At least Negan's smart enough not to let that mess anywhere near us." They start talking about someone called Fat Joe and cake, and then about rigging headways and warfare and demo sticks and the RPGs from us last month. Until finally the walkers are gone and we get moving again.

Jesus and I emerge from our hiding spots. Jesus checks outside and watches the straggling walkers, then slices open the bottom of the liquor box. Jesus already told me that Maggie pulled through, that she and the baby are going to be okay, and that she and Sasha have a home at the Kingdom from now on, no matter how much Gregory disapproves.

He starts spilling a bottle of washing liquid out the back of the truck.

“What are you doing?”

“Making a trail. I think we're close. We should bail out, follow the rest of the way, see what we can see."

"I, uh..." His and my plans are somewhat incompatible. This whole way I've been trying to figure out how he can be useful to me, and if he won't be... then how to get rid of him. "How?"

"It isn't usually the fall that gets us," he says. "It's trying to fight it. Run with it or roll with it, the truck's going slow enough. We'll be in the blind spot. We can race behind one of the other cars."

 _No,_ I think. _Not after how far I've gotten._

"I-if I screw up and we get caught—"

"It'll be fine. We just gotta go now."

"Okay," I say, jolting to the truck. "Show me first."

He does, leaping through the tarp and disappearing into thin air. I step to the back and watch him duck behind a car... and I wave.

"Sorry, man."

* * *

 

Several minutes later, I feel the truck slowing and turning. Through the tarp, flitters of this place, wherever it is, show a smoggy sky and part of a factory building, with big chimneys and a tall fire escape on one side, nothing green or alive in sight, but I hear walkers. See them. All over. Some are just severed heads strung up on poles, while others, whole writhing bodies, are tied to posts and chains, like guard dogs. As we drive through the courtyard, the truck leaves a thick dust cloud.

In a big case next to me, there's a machine gun half my size. I stuff it with a full magazine and the truck squeaks to a stop. We’re parked in another courtyard, outside of the guard dog enclosure. I hide.

"Okay, boys..." Negan says. “Let's get this haul unloaded and inside. I want to get back in there and _unload_ a little myself."

"Negan, need to talk to you about redirect."

"What about the redirect?"

"It got screwed up. We're on it now, but it's a mess out there."

"And whose job was that?"

Someone’s tying the tarp back. I duck behind boxes with the machine gun poking through, my muscles turning stone.

"Aw, damn," one Savior complains. "I thought they packed this up tight."

"Ah, no worries," Negan says. "Plenty more where this came from."

They're laughing, climbing up. One guy picks up the box of liquor and every bottle smashes at his feet. "Son of a bitch!"

Someone else laughs. The guy bends down, turns, sees me. "What the—" Blood scatters across his chest and his body flies backwards. I see an outhouse, a fence, and another man running away.

"Stay back!" I shout, stood at the edge of the trunk now, machine gun up and swinging. "Drop your weapons! I only want Negan."

Men are glaring at me, their hands up, feet shuffling.

"He killed my friends! No one else needs to die."

Whistling — I spot him weaving through his men, making his way over. "Fuck! _You_ are  _adorable_!" He grabs a tall guy and uses him as a barrier. "Did you pick that gun 'cause it looks cool? You totally fucking did, right?”

Negan laughs.

"Kid, I ain't gonna lie, you scare the fucking  _shit_  outa me."

That’s when someone runs at me and I shoot holes in their chest, but I'm not fast enough to stop someone else coming in at my side. I hit the dirt, Dwight weight on me. Dust in my eyes and mouth, I try to kick and shove, but he puts my machine gun to my forehead.

My hands come up.

"Dwight,” Negan says. “Back off..." He does, taking my knife. Two dead bodies lay next to me. Negan steps over, grinning down at me. “Is that any way to treat our new guest?”

He holds out a gloved hand.

"Come on, kid. I'll show you around."

My heart skips beats, but I keep my face still.

"You know, you do the same damn stink-eye as your dad..." Negan points. "Except it's only half as good 'cause, well, you know, you're missing an eye... Really? You're really not gonna take my hand? 'Cause you're lucky you even still have a hand. Same as your boy Daryl over here..."

I see him behind the fence, spear in hand, watching us; the help.

"Now that I think about it. How's the job going, Daryl? Hot enough for you? Yeah, it'd be tough with one arm..." Negan laughs and turns back to me, hand out — and I take it. " _Ah,_ smart kid. Now, come with me."

I grab my hat from the dust.

"Dwighty-boy, why don't you grab Daryl, take him to the kitchen, do a little grub prep."

Dwight's tight, scarred-up face nods.

"New plan, boys!" Negan adds to the rest. "Let's burn the dead, unload the truck later. Damn, I am not gonna have time to fuck any of my wives today." He turns to Dwight and puts up a finger. "I mean, maybe one."

Dwight pulls Daryl along.

Negan grins at me, making a circle around me. "Come on," he says over the growling — I hear a door shut heavily while the others go through. Negan walks away.

"What’re you gonna do to me?" I ask, not turning to him. But he turns to me, slowly, and when I see his face it's all twisted up.

"Number one," he says, " _do not_ shatter my image of you." I don't understand what this means until he says, "You're a _fucking badass_. You're not scared of shit. Don't be scared of me. It's a disappointment."

I hate that this hurts a bit.

"Number two,” he goes on, “you really want me to ruin the surprise? Fuck you, kid." He winks at me. "Seriously. Fuck you."

He takes my shoulder and pulls me towards the building. Inside is a large warehouse, a balcony as we go on overlooking an open, underground floor. It's cold. My fingers are numb and mist leaves my nose. The windows cover most outside walls, but they're all so dirty they make the whole factory look old and colourless. I can hear a lot of people talking, and see them, crowded in what looks like a large market-type area, going about their morning.

"Check this out," Negan says in my ear, then steps to the banister.

Immediately, everybody falls silent and kneels.

"The Saviors have gone out into the world and fought the dead and come back with some really good stuff,” Negan calls out to them. “Some of that stuff can be yours, if you work hard and play by the rules. Today, everybody gets fresh vegetables at dinner. No. Points. Needed."

They all clap and cheer. Negan turns to me and leans back against the railing; I imagine it snapping and him plunging to his death — doesn't happen.

"You see that?" He speaks through his teeth, biting every syllable. " _Respect._ Cool, huh?" Leaning close, he whispers, "They still on their knees?" They are. He tips back and shouts, "Asyouwere!" and they bustle to life again, standing and chatting. Negan walks around me.

I step towards the railing, touch it, _carefully,_ like it might snap now just to spite me.

 _Respect,_ I think, _cool..._

"Come on, kid." Negan grins. "Wanna show you something."

* * *

 

I'm taken deep into the factory. The further we go the cleaner and brighter it becomes, like this place is some backwards paradox. We come to an open double door and I follow Negan through.

"Ladies..."

I see tight black dresses and lacey high heels, and all six women either frowning, staring, or ignoring us as we enter. I look somewhere else desperately. Couches. Lots of those, too; the small ones made for only one or two people at a time. Plants. Lamps. Over in the corner is a big liquor cabinet. The windows are still that same dull filth colour — my eye draws back to skin again.

"Don't mind the kid," Negan says.

I look at the ground.

"I know..." He groans. "Every woman where you're from dresses like they do the books at an auto shop. _You're gonna wanna look at their titties._ "

The worst thing is, it's true — I catch myself again and aim my face at the floor vehemently.

"It's cool," Negan says. I look at him. He grins. "I won't mind. They won't mind. Knock yourself out."

I don't. He moves away to two women sitting on a couch, one blonde and small and the other brunette and tall. The brunette woman is consoling the blonde woman, by the looks.

"Can I talk to you for a minute, dear wife?" Negan asks the brunette woman.

She crosses the room to the liquor cabinet, without looking at him. Negan joins her, jostling me and telling me, "Make yourself comfortable, kid," as he passes.

Again, I don't — this room is a centrefold come to life. A ginger woman in front of me stares at me, with a faraway look on her face. Two other women, one with long hair and the other short, sit quietly on another couch playing cards together. There’s a curvy-type woman staring down at her lap, wavy black hair and dark brown skin and a neck-line low enough I hold my breath and have to keep not looking. The blonde woman is still crying.

Negan and the brunette woman drink and whisper about someone named Mark and something else about rules, and then Negan touches her chin and asks her, "I ever hit one of you?"

"No. But I know you. There's worse."

He laughs silently. The ginger woman is still watching me and I think I burst into flames, and then Negan is coming over, pushing a warm beer bottle into my hand and closing my fingers around it. He steps over to the blond woman. Her face crinkles up, and she starts shaking.

"Amber, baby," he says, sitting on a chair in front of her. He takes her hands and this tiny high-pitched squeak comes out of her throat. Negan smiles. "You know I don't want anyone here that doesn't want to be here, right?"

"M-hm..."

"Oh..." he coos, "so if you want to leave and go back to Mark, you can. But what can't you do?"

"Cheat... on you—"

" _That_ is exactly fucking right." He gets in her face, slowly, talking through his teeth again only now he sounds poisonous. "You. _Can't._ Fucking. Cheat on me. There's plenty of other gals who would love to take your place, _and_ there's a few job openings that I can think of. You want to go back to Mark and your mom? Hell, I'll put you all on the same job—"

"No." She's crying. "I'll stay. I'm — I'm sorry."

He touches her chin. "You know what that means, right?" She’s nodding. Negan says it again.

"Ye—yes. I love you, Negan."

"Oh, of course you do, darlin'. I don't know why you're crying. It's all gonna work out aces for you." He strokes her cheek and I think of last month with Enid and Davey, and a year ago, when the Claimers got us — I feel sick.

Negan looks at me and grins. I don't know what I look like anymore. I've never seen something like this before. I've never seen someone treat someone like this. He kisses Amber's forehead, then gets up.

"Sherry, will you get Carson for me?"

"Yeah," the brunette, Sherry, says.

"Did you see that?" Negan asks her. "Wasn't hard on her, even though I am _very_ hard in general."

She ignores the way he thrusts his hips in her direction. "You're an asshole."

"I _know,_ " he growls, winding around her back like a snake. "But the fucked up thing is, you like me anyway. You know the truth, just like me..."

And then they kiss — the kind you do in private. The kind of secret kiss I've never seen from an outsider's point of view, except this isn't like the kisses I know about at all.

I look away.

Negan points at the door, still kissing, and I look and startle at Dwight and Daryl standing there. Daryl watches at me, saying nothing. He's holding a tray of food — cheeses and grapes and other things with cocktail sticks through them.

Finally, when Negan and his wife stop kissing, his wife turns away and stands very still. Negan chuckles and meets us. He looks Daryl in the eye and eats an olive off the platter.

"Carl, will you grab this tray for me?"

I put down the beer and take it, whispering, “Jesus,” as quietly as I can, and Daryl just stares at me, then he looks at Negan.

"Why d'you got him here?"

" _Whoa!_ " Negan barks. "What we talk about when you're not here is none of your business. Do not make me put this toothpick through the _only_ eye he has."

Daryl looks away. I feel disoriented, standing back while ‘Dwighty boy’ says he’ll get him a mop and fire up the furnace:—“Time for a little déjà vu...” Negan says. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

He smiles at me.

“Come on, kid.”

As I'm taken away, Daryl whispers, "Get away," into my ear.

* * *

 

Inside Negan's room, everything is that same grey colour, only strangely sharp and vibrant. There's a four-poster bed and a sitting area with a couch facing two armchairs, a coffee table in between. The shelves and curtains match and the windows are clean, and on the wall behind the armchairs is a taxidermized animal head — I don't know what animal it is though; some African antelope, I think – Oliver would know. He liked African wildlife.

I cringe at myself, hating that about me now. How he's so etched in my head. I don't go ten minutes without him popping up somewhere. I reek of Oliver, so I think of Negan’s wives instead.

"Are... all of those women... actually your..."

"Wives?" Negan asks, throwing his scarf on the bed and shutting the door behind us. "Yeah! Always wanted to fuck a whole bunch of different women — I mean, why settle for just one? Why follow the same old rules? Why not make life better?"

I don’t answer because I don’t know if the question is really for me.

"Speaking of... sit."

I set the tray down on the coffee table and I sit opposite him in the armchair.

"Let's get started," he says.

"Started on what?"

Negan chuckles. "I want to get to know you better, Carl."

"Why?"

"Work it out... You're smart. In fact, I'm gonna tell you just how smart you are, in case you don't already know. See, I'd expect a kid your age to be moping around, not doing a damn thing, except crying about missing the prom. But _you?_ You go on a mission. You find me, you _kill_ two of my men, and you're smart enough to know, that I'm ... not ... gonna ... let ... this ... slide."

I steel my face.

Negan giggles into his fingers. "Ah, I can't — I can't do it," he says. "It's like talking to a birthday present. You gotta take that crap off your face." His hands bawl to fists, eyes wide. "I wanna see what Grandma got me!"

"No—"

"TWO MEN!"

Like a flash of lightning, Negan’s voice turns from playful pink to flashing red — I flinch inside, this thought coming into my head on how colours have their own wavelength; red light is the hardest to scatter by air molecules, which is why people use it in danger signs. That's Negan, now — a bright red danger sign.

"Two men," he repeats. "Punishment. Do you really want to piss me off?" His red voice has turned to black — an absence of light altogether, as if he's sucking it out of the air.

I take a steep breath, so I don’t suffocate.

Negan is giggling while I remove my hat and unwrap my head, telling me, "Almost _there,_ " in a croaky excited voice. I haven't shown it to anyone, unless I count Michonne changing it. Not Dad. Not Oliver. Not even Judith. As I slip the bandage away, it’s so damp with sweat and dirt it makes a squelching sound — "Get that hair out of your face. Let me see."

I brush my fringe behind my ear and look at the floor, feeling ill.

"Fucking _Christ!_ " Negan cries. "That is disgusting. No wonder you cover that up. Have you seen it? I mean, have you _looked_ in the mirror? That is _gross as fuck._ I can see your _socket_... I wanna touch it. Oh, come on, can I touch it?"

I'm crying.

" _Damn._ Holy fuck, kid..." Negan sits back suddenly, like he doesn't know what to do. He sighs. "Look... I just — It's easy to forget that you're just a kid. And I didn't mean to hurt your feelings or anything. I was just fucking around—"

"Just forget it..." I sniff, sinking through the couch.

Someone knocks on the door.

"Come in."

Careful not to show my face, I see through my fringe a man enter the room. He’s big and nervous looking, carrying the baseball bat.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, sir, but uh, you left Lucille out by the truck."

"Seriously? I never do that, I guess a kid firing a machine gun is a little bit of a distraction.” He smiles at me. “All jokes aside, you look rad as hell. I wouldn't cover that shit up. It may not be a hit with the ladies, but I swear to you, _no one_ is gonna fuck with you looking like that. No, sir."

I don't want this to make me feel better, but it does.

“Fat Joseph, did you carry her all the way up here for me?”

"Yes, sir."

He takes Lucille back. "Were you gentle? Were you kind?"

"Uh..."

"Did you treat her like a lady?"

"Y— es. Yes, sir."

"Did you pet her little pussy like a lady?"

Joseph says nothing.

"I'm just fucking around, man,” Negan caws. “A baseball bat doesn't have a pussy!"

Awkwardly, Joseph laughs — he's got Dad's gun.

"Get the hell out," Negan snaps, and Joseph leaves immediately. The door shuts. Negan grins at me. "Now, you see? That's what I'm talking about. Men breaking each other's balls. This is the shit _your dad's_ supposed to be teaching you."

He sighs, leaning on his knees now.

"What do you like to do for fun? You like music?"

Even though I don’t answer, Negan smiles.

"I want you to sing me a song..."

I look at him. "What?"

"Yeah. You mowed down two of my men with a machine gun. I want something in _return_ for that. Sing me a song."

"I — I can't think of any."

" _Bullshit!_ What'd your mom used to sing you? What'd your dad play in the car?" He stands over me and aims Lucille at my skull. "Start. _Fucking._ Singing."

"Okay, okay," I gasp, swallowing, racking my brain, and I have a song, I do, but I don't want to sing it. Not to Negan. I only sang it once before, that night Pete and Deanna's husband died, that night I listened to Oliver play his ukulele and we danced together and I sang to him. I can't think of anything else. "Okay, uh... _You... You,_ uh, _are my sunshine..."_

"Go on."

 _"...my only sunshine._  
_You make me happy, when skies are grey."_

Lucille swings through the air behind me — I flinch.

" _Do not_ let me distract you, young man," Negan orders.

I swallow, blink away tears, sing,  _"You'll never know..."_

He swings again. I shudder.

 _"...dear, how much_ – I love you.  
_So — please don't take my sunshine away."_

I'm crying again, reeking with him even worse than before. Oliver is all over me. He's wound through my hair and weaved between my fingers, fitting under my clothes, hiding inside my socket, and my chest is breaking all over again.

"That's pretty fucking good," Negan tells me. "Lucille _loves_ being sung to. It's about the only thing she loves more than bashing in brains. Weird, huh?”

He sits on the coffee table, our knees knocking, his voice all soft and gentle now.

“Did your mother sing that to you? Where is she now?"

I just shake my head and sniff.

"Damn. Dead, huh? You see it happen?"

"I shot her..." I sniff. "Before it could..."

" _Damn,_ no wonder you're a little serial killer in the making." Again, that hurts. Everything does right now. It hurts to breathe and it hurts to think, and then it hurts even worse because Negan leans close and says, "That was an example of breaking balls, by the way."

I don't look at him. Can't.

"Come on, kid. Get up. It should be ready."

"What should be ready?" I whisper.

Negan gives me a very serious look. "The iron."

* * *

 

He has me hold Lucille.

"You know the deal,” he tells everybody, on the catwalk overlooking a large cement furnace. Saviors crown around it, waiting; Daryl among them, watching me. “What's about to happen is gonna be hard to watch. I don't want to do it. I wish I could just ignore the rules and let it slide, but I can't. Why?"

Every Savior yells back: "The rules keep us alive."

Negan leads me down a spiral staircase.

"That. Is. Right,” he says. “We survive. We provide security to others. We bring civilization back to this world. We are the Saviors. But we can't do that without rules. Rules are what make it _all_ work. I know it's not easy. But there's always work. There is always a cost. Here, if you try to _skirt it_ , if you try to _cut that corner!_ "

He chuckles.

"Then it is the iron for you."

They're all brought to their feet again. Negan walks through the crowd to the furnace. I feel like every pair of eyes in the room is on my socket. He didn’t let me wrap it up. I keep my head down. There's a man, who has even more attention than I do, however. He sits slumped in a chair in front of the flames, shaking, while Dwight mans the glowing iron inside with a long pipe.

Negan pats his shoulder. "Mark, I'm sorry..." He puts on protective gloves and takes the iron. "But it is what it is."

Amber wails, standing to the side with the other wives, and as the iron comes down on Mark’s face, I get memories of Oliver screaming ... his arm melting ... blood and skin and smoke ... and then I snap back to Mark screaming. Smoke fills the whole building. I want to look away but I don't and then, finally, Mark blacks out. The air smells of pork and train stations and I'm shaking, furious.

Negan squeals. "Ah, that wasn't so bad, now, was it?"

Skin oozes down Mark’s cheek.

Negan grimaces. "Jesus. He pissed himself." He steps over to Daryl, whispering, "Clean that up," into his ear. He turns to the crowd. "Doc, I'm all done. Do your thing!"

Mark is taken away, face still smoking and dripping.

"Well, pussy passed out," Negan speaks to everyone. "But it's settled, we're square. Everything is cool. Let Mark's face be a daily reminder to him and to everyone else that the rules matter. I _hope_ that we all learned something today, because I don't _ever_ want to have to do that again."

He stands next to me.

"Pretty fucking crazy shit, huh?" he mutters. "You probably think I'm a lunatic.”

I glare at him, thinking of Glenn and Abraham.

“Come on." He takes my shoulder. "Let's go figure out what to do with you."

* * *

 

Back in Negan's room, we sit opposite each other while he writes things in a notebook.

"Can I wrap up my face now?"

"No, you absolutely fucking cannot."

"Why the fuck not?!"

The word feels good out of my mouth, especially when I aim it at his face.

"Whoa. Ho, ho... Look at this bad mother fucker." His face turns hard, suddenly. "You can't because I'm not done with you. And I _like_ looking at your disgusting, rad-ass, badass eye, so it's staying out.”

I stare at him.

“What? You got something to say?"

"Why haven't you killed me? Or my dad, or Daryl?"

"Daryl is gonna make a good soldier for me. You see, he thinks he's holding it together but you saw it. Your dad? He's already getting me great stuff. You, on the other hand... well, we shall see... It's more productive to break you. More fun, too. You thinking that's stupid?"

"I'm thinking we're different."

" _Mm._ You're a smart kid. What do you think I should do? You know I can't let you go. So, do I kill you? Iron your face? Chop off your arm? Tell me... What do you think?"

Suddenly, I'm on my feet, stood over him with the coffee table between us.

"I think you should jump out the window to save me the trouble of killing you."

" _Oh!_ " Negan claps. "Now, _there_ is the kid that impressed the _hell_ out of me—"

"I think you're not saying what you're gonna do to me because you're not going to do anything. If you knew us, if you knew anything, you _would_ kill us... but you _can't_."

" _Hoo..._ "

He's looking at me like he's never seen a boy before.

"Maybe you're right. Maybe I can't." He claps his hands together and stands up to grab Lucille. "Let's go for a ride, kid."

* * *

 

A few minutes later, we’re sitting in a truck and other Saviors are getting ready to join us in other trucks, walker growls close by. I wonder where Jesus is, and then Negan shouts, "Daryl!" out the window.

Daryl comes to the door, his face pinched up.

"You seem worried," Negan tells him, "so I'm taking the kid home."

"If you do anything to him—"

"Dwight! Daryl needs a time-out. Put him back in his box for a while."

He's dragged back towards the factory. Negan follows the other vehicles out the compound. The drive is long and anxious on my side, but Negan grins. A small thought in my head wonders if we’re even going back to Alexandria. He’s brought others with him. We could be going anywhere. And even if we do go home, they could dangle me in front of my dad’s nose, get him to beg like a dog again. They could tie me to a tree and light it on fire. They could cut me into pieces and pass me around for dinner, or worse, not cut me up at all, pass me around anyway...

Negan’s getting what he wants, I remind myself. He already has me in here with him and taking me back in one piece is just another upper hand he’s going to have over Dad’s head. Something else Dad will ‘owe him’ for. I should never have come here. I’ve made everything worse.

At some point, Negan looks over and asks me to sing another song, but tells me he's joking right before I’m about to scream at him. I think I’m sulking, watching the dashboard, but I think there has to be a different word for it when you’re this furious, _this_ ashamed.

"You didn't get much of an eyeful of my wives earlier," Negan adds, scoffing. "I know you only got one eye and all but that doesn’t make you fucking blind. What, my ladies not good enough for you?"

"It's not that." I shake my head and shut up.

"What, you got something better to go home to?"

I shut my eye.

" _Oh..._ " Negan coos. "It’s that little home-slice Davey was talking to before, huh?"

"No," I mumble. “Somebody else.”

Negan frowns curiously. "Well, this lucky gal got a name?"

Shrugging, I say, "Oliver..." and for a moment, Negan's eyebrows get flung through the roof. I look out the window, getting this feeling I haven’t felt before, like I have to explain myself — I never even had to tell my dad.

The floor's getting torn out along the road and Negan laughs.

I glare at him. “ _What?_ ”

" _Damn..._  I did  _not_  expect  _that._ You mo?"

"Am I what?"

"Mo?" he repeats. "Homo?"

Grimacing, I just turn away and stare at the dashboard.

"So much for shattering my image of you," Negan says.

"Screw your image of me."

"Fucking _right,_ kid!" he cheers, which I wasn't expecting. "You..." He makes a fist with his hand and shakes it in front of him. " _...beat_ those stereotypes. All that equality shit."

I can't tell if he's serious or not so I ignore him.

"Oh, you gotta introduce us. I wanna meet him!"

I don't say anything. I'm not really sure what's happening.

" _Aw,_  now don't be nervous,” he complains. “I won't judge. Hey, no shaming here. You're into what you're into. No changing that. Unless it's kids or animals, or rape, then we got a problem."

"He's gone," I explain. "You — you can't meet him, he's..."

"Oh..." Negan has the same look on his face as when he made me cry. "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. You put him down, too? Like your mom?"

Gritting teeth, I say, “No. Oliver's just gone."

There are a few seconds’ silence.

"Well," Negan grunts, "if you won't sing for me again, and if you're gonna keep being so fucking vague, I'll just make my own entertainment...” He starts pressing buttons on the radio. “It's the start of a whole new world, kid!" Nothing but static and he turns it up full blast, so loud I grunt and cover my ears — Negan pulls my hands down. "No. Listen. This is it..."

He grins.

"...the Big Bang, _itself!_ "

* * *

 

At home, Negan uses Lucille to knock five times on the front door. Olivia answers. He marches right past her, whistling that whistle. Lucille isn't a vampire, I decide. If she was she would need an invitation.

Olivia looks horrified. "Carl, where's—"

"Enid's fine," I say, and I'm about to ask if Michonne's home yet, but Negan speaks over me.

"Great, great, great, great, great, _great!_ " He circles the living room. "Where's Rick?"

"Uh, I — I'm just—" Olivia stutters.

" _Don't care._ Where's Rick?"

"Um, out scavenging for you..."

" _Cool!_ " He grins at her. "I'll wait."

"Um... he went out pretty far. They might not be back today. We're running really low on everything. We're practically starving here."

Negan looks at her and leans back on his hips. "Starving? You? By 'practically'—" Negan uses air quotes. "—you mean 'not really'."

Olivia bursts into tears.

Negan laughs and turns around to me. " _Really?_ "

I glare at him.

Still, he walks over. "You people seriously don't have a sense of humour." He sighs at my silence, then walks back over to her. "Excuse me. What's your name again?"

" _Olivia._ "

"Right. Olivia." He touches her arm and she turns to him slowly. "I am sorry for having been so rude to you just now. And it looks like I'm gonna be here for a while, awaiting your _fearless_ leader's return. And if you'd like, I think it would be enjoyable to fuck your brains out. I mean, if, you know, you're agreeable to—"

She slaps him.

Negan jostles, then shakes his head like he’s not sure that really happened. Then he takes a step closer to her. "I am about fifty percent more into you now. Just sayin'..."

Olivia's shaking.

He backs off.

"Alright, well, I'm just gonna put my feet up and wait for my stuff to get here. Olivia, would you be a lamb and make us a little lemonade? Now, I know I left you all some of that good powdered stuff."

"I'm supposed to be with—"

" _Make it!_ Make it. Take your time. Make it good."

She staggers to the door and leaves.

"Alright, kid!" Negan cheers. "Take me on the grand tour."

* * *

 

Negan finds the music player first, puts on a Janis Martin album.

"And you told me you didn't know songs, kid."

"They aren't mine."

 _'I'll trade you my heart for your heart, baby,_  
_I’ll give you all my kisses to boot.  
I'll trade you my heart for your heart, baby,_  
_I’ll give you all my kisses to boot._  
_If you feel you'd like to make a deal,_  
_cock your pistol and rooty-toot-toot._

 _Bang-bang-bang, bang-bang-bang._  
_Bang-bang-bang._  
_Bang-bangedy-bang...'_

He likes our carpets, since there are none where he comes from. He takes off his shoes and wiggles his toes into wool and nylon. He likes my dart board, too, and he hits bull's eye every time. Our taps are "fascinating" and our coffee maker is "inspiring."

"How about this room?"

"Oh — it's just a water heater."

"Are you serious, kid? Come on."

He opens the door and Judith is standing at the edge of her cot, looking up at us. Negan hands Lucille to me and I watch carefully as he picks Judith up, Patty Catty squashed between their chests. She doesn’t know him, so she pouts at me.

"Oh-ho, _my_..." Negan coos. "Look at this little _angel._ Oh- _ho-ho..._ "

I use up all my energy trying to think Negan out of existence while he carries my baby sister downstairs and out onto the porch, but he's still here. He sits in the rocking chair with Judith in his lap, asking me to sit next to him. He hums the _Bang Bang_ song, and after long, Judith curls up to his chest and begins to fall asleep.

"Oh, this little girl is precious," he says. Tobin walks past and double takes. Negan grins at him. "Hey, neighbour! Why don't you come by later? We might grill out. Oh, I like it here. M-hm. I might just have to stay here. You know, I was thinking about what you said earlier, Carl. Maybe it is stupid keeping you and your dad alive. I mean, why am I trying so hard? Maybe I should just bury you both down in one of those flower beds. Huh? And then I could just settle into the suburbs.

 _What do you think about that?_ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was Bang Bang by Janis Martin.
> 
> Two years. Two years, I've been waiting to write this chapter.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	118. Season 7 ~ Hearts Still Beating, Part 1: Productive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, I answer the question: How far can an author go about writing nswf without it actually being smut?
> 
> (I changed the rating to mature because of this bollocks...)
> 
> Oh dear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Put some gloves on, guys... this one's a fucking mess.
> 
> Just, read slowly? It's not as terrible as it all sounds. Swear.

_...a day before the events in the previous chapter..._

* * *

 

An old eighties rock album blares through the stereo. The curtains are drawn. A thin blanket is draped over the lamp on the desk, casting the walls in a dim green light. Oliver's supposed to be at the stables this morning, but instead he’s in Joey Song’s bedroom, sitting in Joey’s lap. The bed is creaking loudly, but Joey's uncle isn't home and T. Rex's is drowning the sound anyway.

_'Well you can bump and grind_  
_It is good for your mind_  
_Well you can twist and shout_  
_Let it all hang out_  
_But you won't fool the children of the revolution_  
_No, you won't fool the children of the revolution_  
_No, no, no...’_

"You’re so—"

"Shush."

"—so..."

" _Shush._ "

Oliver covers Joey’s mouth, breathless and reeling and skin on skin.

_'But you won't fool the children of the revolution_  
_No, you won't fool the children of the revolution_  
_No way...'_

After, Oliver finds a lighter and a pre-rolled joint inside his boot. He wipes sweat from his face and chest and lights up, holding the joint between his lips. He spends a while lying across Joey’s chest, taking in the smoke and the music and that feeling of the world melting throughandthroughandthrough itself, then Joey makes him use a mug for an ashtray.

Ashes stick to the old goats’ milk at the bottom.

"You should not smoke in here," Joey says over the music. "My uncle will go ape if he smells it."

Oliver grins. 'Ape' is something Jerry would say. He passes the blunt over politely and Joey smokes in spite of himself, then puts his head back on the pillow, his fingers trailing through Oliver's hair and catching the two tiny braids hidden inside his fringe.

Oliver shuffles off the bed and wanders around the bedroom. He sets the mug on the desk and leaves his joint balanced on top, humming and nodding his head to the beat. He goes to the window and pulls the curtains open and sunlight swallows him whole. He loves it. _God._ But Joey rushes up and shuts the curtains after him.

“Someone could see you! My uncle already think it's weird you spend so much time 'studying' here. What you think he do when he hears rumours of you naked in my window?”

Oliver giggles.

Annoyed, Joey goes to the stereo and turns off the music. Oliver's world goes grey in silence. He grabs his joint and smokes — Joey snatches it and puts it out with a wet thumb.

“Hey!”

“Relax. You can finish later.” He puts it behind Oliver’s ear for him. “Oliver, are you hearing me?”

Oliver’s no good at conversation, especially like this. He tips his head back and looks up to the ceiling where Joey has an Avatar poster taped up; the movie with alien people. Oliver only got to see it at last movie night. He liked the forest, how it lit up under the Na'vi peoples’ feet. Oliver likes remembering forest outside Alexandria like that, like the ground glowed wherever he stepped only he just didn't see it because it was always daytime. But Oliver felt it. He was connected to the trees. He could hear them if he listened hard enough, and they could hear him back, like music.

"I’ve got chores," Oliver says, pulling on his clothes.

Joey’s brown epicanthic eyes follow him to the window. "You can use the door..."

Oliver looks at Joey's tanned-olive skin, his floppy, black hair all scruffy with sweat over his temples, and the plantation of red and purple marks across his throat — and registers the disappointment on Joey's face.

“Sorry,” Oliver says. “I wasn’t going to do this.”

It was true. He wasn’t. The last month had been a blur. Three main events had happened and Oliver was still having trouble making sense of it.

The first thing, he and Joey. Joey was almost a year older and over half a foot taller, shy and timid and as soft spoken as a bird. The day Oliver said goodbye to Carol, he came back for supper and sat with Joey and asked how Billy was doing. He learned that Joey moved here from Beijing and that he spoke several languages, but struggled in math, Oliver’s best subject, so he offered to tutor him. Oliver was there when one of the goats died suddenly. Oliver helped him bury it. He sat there by the grave and waited for Joey to stop crying — Joey’s like that, cries over goats and buries them like people, and Oliver felt mean for not feeling sad. And a few days later, Joey was getting picked on by some other kids, so Oliver stepped in and beat them up. He stole one of the kid’s knives and once the kids were gone, he gave it to Joey:—“Happy birthday.” “But I’m not seventeen until tomorrow.” “Then consider it punctual.”

Joey was crying.

“Look, Joey,” Oliver told him, “you have to fight back. Even if you’re not tough, they won’t know. _Entrambi sono idioti —_ they’re not stupid like the walkers either, easier, these guys don’t bite.”

“You were so angry,” Joey said.

“You’ve seen me angry before.”

“No. I see you fight. You were not angry last time.”

“How would you know?”

“You like it, fighting. That is what I know.”

“I just don’t like assholes.”

“No. You do.”

“Assholes? Yeah, got me.”

“ _Fighting._ ”

They laughed.

“Fine,” Oliver said. “I like it, alright. I like fighting.”

That night, Joey kissed him — just his cheek. Oliver shoved him away; he couldn’t believe him, and Joey kept saying sorry and Oliver kept saying nothing until he said, “Shut up,” and kissed him on the mouth. They kissed all evening until Joey’s uncle came home and Oliver had to climb out the window.

The second event, or events, was that Oliver has been kissing a lot more people at the Kingdom. He figured it didn’t matter, after Isabelle and Joey. So there was Stacey. Jillian. And Mindy, who let him put his hand in her shorts. He didn’t usually go further than that. The girls will talk and laugh and then they’ll go make out behind the bleachers or the stables, and there was that one time when Sean thought Oliver might’ve been his boyfriend, but she quickly broke up with him after she realised he was avoiding her:—“You never tell me anything about yourself, Oliver. I have no idea who you are. I’m sorry... See you around.” Then there’s Esme, who’s like the Kingdom’s resident ghost. Esme is exactly a day older that Oliver, born in a hospital with the same name (Standord Hospital) except Oliver’s was in North Dakota and Esme’s was in California. Esme’s skin is dark, hair so big and frizzy and black people get lost in it, and they use neutral pronouns which is something Oliver had never heard of before. Esme’s does things a little differently than the rest of the people Oliver’s been kissing. They come to his room some nights at random to fool around with him. The first time was quite a shock for him:—"Err... hey. What's up, Esme?"

"I'm bored.”

“Oh.”

“Can I get in? It’s cold."

"Okay..."

"...Isabelle told me about what happened in the theatre room. Sounded nice. Return the favour, yeah?"

“Oh! Err, o... okay.”

“Got a raincoat?”

“W...what?”

“Condom.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“Nice.”

“ _Oh, jeez._ Isn’t... Isn’t this gonna make things... _weird_ between us?”

“You’re making it weird. Just sit back and relax, Oliver, okay?”

“Okay...”

Esme’s come by a handful more times since then. Always at night. Always ‘bored’. Always whispering. The latest time, about a week ago, Oliver woke up to them sitting on his stomach, humming some nice-sounding song.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“I’m bored...”

“Ez, does bored mean sad to you?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“Well... you’re crying.”

“Look, Oliver, do you want to do this or not?”

“Not if you’re going to keep crying.”

“Won’t have much to cry over if you go south on me.”

“Will you skip class and help me steal Ezekiel’s pomegranates in the morning?”

“Like a deal? You know that’s prostitution, right?”

“No, no, just something to do together.”

“Why?”

“I’m petty. Plus... not all friendships have to revolve around oral.”

“We’re friends?”

“Guess.”

“You’re not falling in love with me, are you?”

“ _Gross._ I just don’t wanna become Shiva-chow. So, deal?”

“Deal.”

When Oliver pulled off Esme's shirt, he noticed a big bruise on their chest. Esme asked him to try not to touch it, so he didn’t. Esme’s mom beat them. Oliver wasn’t allowed to say anything, just like he wasn’t with Ron, and this strange thought occurred to him that he might’ve loved Esme after all, to some extent.

"Just sit back and relax, Ez, okay?"

“Okay...”

And the next morning Esme helped Oliver steal Ezekiel's pomegranates. Esme’s been back since that night, but not to fool around. Sometimes Oliver'll just wake up to them sitting at the end of his bed, reading. He’ll mumble, “What’s up?” and Esme will whisper back, “Nothing. Go back to sleep.”

Oliver remembers where he is again.

"I’ll see you," he says to Joey.

Joey looks at his feet. "Yeah."

T. Rex is coming with, in Oliver’s hoodie pocket. He finds his glasses and inhaler.

"Hey, Oliver? I... I was thinking about coming out."

"Cool, man."

"Yeah, uh..." Joey takes a small breath. "I was hoping you could be there, for when I tell my uncle, I mean."

Oliver's too high for this. Last night wasn’t even supposed to happen. One minute Joey was sitting at his desk, shaking his foot side-to-side, like Carl when he's concentrating, and Oliver thought about that, and he heard Joey ask, "Are you okay?" and then he was under the desk, blowing Joey's world apart. He stayed over all night, and now he was here, facing the consequences.

“Isn’t your uncle kind of...”

Oliver never liked Huan, who was still mad about the goat shelter incident last month, and would give Oliver disapproving looks if he saw him hanging around his place too long. Oliver thinks of him like the human embodiment of Taotie; who, Oliver read in a Chinese mythology book, was a greedy monster that would eat anything and everything and even ate its own body, so by the time it died it was just a big hungry head.

“He’ll get used to it,” Joey says. “It’s not like it concerns him anyway. And I mean... things have been pretty nice for the last few—"

"Joey..."

Oliver's sitting in Joey's lap on the bed. Oliver doesn't know how he got here. Joey kisses him. He tastes musky and hot like air in summer. Oliver kisses him back. He sees blue eyes in his head, but outside, they’re brown.

“Shit.” Oliver pulls back. “Joey. Chill, okay?"

Joey watches him.

Oliver grins, chest collapsing. "Come out, by all means, don't let me stop you. Just, you know, don't do it on account of me. I'm not worth it."

Joey looks sad at that. Oliver didn’t mean it to be sad. As far as he’s aware, it was the truth.

"Yes you are..." Joey touches Oliver's cheek but Oliver laughs and shakes him off. Joey frowns. "What is your problem, Oliver?"

"Nothing, man."

Joey shakes his head.

Oliver's finding it harder and harder to keep grinning.

"You always act so... so... like you don't care about anything," Joey explains, "like you don't have time to let someone close."

"You don't know me..."

"I don't. But I know you flinch when people touch you sometimes. I know you can sit and stare off into space like you've fallen out of your own body, and not even when you’re high, and... I know you go and talk to that old lady, and—"

"She's not that old."

"—and I know you always come back sad. I saw you crying last time. You’re so... _alone_."

Oliver just looks at him. He shuts his eyes, waits, then laughs and steps off him.

"You _are,_ " Joey says, voice rising. "I know you mess around and I know you have lots of friends and play like some—” He says a Chinese word Oliver doesn’t understand. “—who’s got everything understood, but you are _pretending_... like performance in theatre."

"You’d know!"

"I would!" Joey yells, then sputters out quickly like a sparkler. "I've been pretending all my life..."

Oliver ignores him. He is not a sparkler. Not anymore. He’s a whole forest fire. Too furious even to speak.

"I heard you say his name while you were sleeping," Joey explains. "You said... Carl."

Oliver stops breathing. He had a nightmare last night. He’s had the same nightmare almost every night for weeks now. In it, it’s always snowing, and he’s always doing target practice with his Thunder. Joey’s there, or sometimes it’s Esme instead. They’ll be standing right next to him. Oliver’ll look over to them and smile. He never notices him —Carl— standing in place of the target. He doesn’t notice. He doesn’t have time. It happens before he knows it, always. Oliver cocks his Thunder, pulls the trigger, and sends a bolt of lightning right through Carl’s face...

Oliver’s stomach hits the floor. His cheeks sear. Joey stands close, looking down at him. Oliver thinks of how Joey looked at him like that last night. It was Joey’s first time. They were trying to be as quiet as they could, sticking to the side of the bed by the wall so it wouldn't creek so bad. Joey was nervous and once Oliver had gotten all the condomy steps out of the way, he made a math joke to break the ice and Joey laughed so hard, then settled. He looked at Oliver, close, nerves in his throat and Oliver between his knees.

"Does it hurt bad, your first time?"

"Just go slow.”

"Okay..."

“R— Real slow."

Oliver’d felt that same thing he did that night with Esme, like he might have loved Joey, only it wasn’t quite for sympathy but rather gratitude, this time. But he didn’t tell. He just laid there, watching Joey — he shut his eyes but Oliver asked him to keep them open. Oliver wanted to look at Joey and keep on looking at him, right up until it was over.

But not now. Now Oliver wants to stop looking at anyone. Go do chores. Horses don't ask you to help them come out to their uncles. Horses don't bring up your exes. They don’t cry over goats or tell you you're a fake. If anything, horses know you are already, they just have the decency not to call you out on it.

You never really stop loving your first love, he thinks, not when you fall that hard. Carl left an impact like a footprint in cement and now that it's hardened up the dent only fits one shoe. Oliver can lay dirt on top, fill the empty space, plant all the seeds he likes — hell, he can grow a garden for all the universe cares, but none will ever break through the hardness. None like Carl Grimes.

"Oliver?"

Joey's said it several times already but Oliver only snaps out of his thoughts now. Joey looks guilty, and he reaches out but Oliver jerks his shoulder away.

"I... I should not have mentioned him."

Oliver glares at him, eyes wet. Joey's cheeks are crimson but he scowls back. Oliver’s never seen Joey this angry. Oliver wants him to hit him, to fight back. He hates that Joey won’t fight back. He hates the way nobody does here. Not Esme with their mom, or Juni when Ray and Leviathan knocked his tooth out, or Isabelle when Oliver just walked out on her, or Ezekiel when the Saviors terrorise him even if half of his people don’t know it.

And it’s getting worse.

In the latest trade Oliver joined three days ago, they hadn’t found enough food and Oliver became the deposit, forced in the back of a truck while a guy called Fat Joseph pointed a gun at his chest. The others had two hours to find something, and in the end found some canned goods and a bunch of syphoned gas. It was enough, and Oliver was let go with a warning — which was issued because in the wait he kept asking Fat Joseph where he got his gun from. It was a Colt Python, like Rick’s. Fat Joseph said, “Why don’t you mind your own business?” and Oliver said back, “Why don’t you suck my nuts?” and then a guy called Simon said, “I wouldn’t say that, kid. Unless you wanna end up like the last guy...” and Oliver didn’t know what that meant but flipped him the finger anyway. “Think you’re funny, kid?” Simon asked and Oliver asked back, “Think you look good with that weasel sitting on your face?” and then Simon put a gag in his mouth and covered his face with a sack until the others got back.

So, screw it. _Yes._ Oliver likes to fight. Oliver likes to make trouble where trouble is due, where all the terrible _angryhurtbadsad_ hidden inside him can come out where it’s useful, where fire can light and _burnburn **burn**_.

"You think you're special?” Oliver growls at Joey. “You think you can save me? Show me how to feel? All that bull?”

“No. I—”

“We  _fucked,_ Joey!" Oliver shouts, breathless, cheeks wet. He’s sick of all this crying. “That's  _it!_ ”

Joey looks defeated. "That _is_ it. We're not doing it anymore."

" _Whatever._ " Oliver grabs the rest of his things. "Study on your own, asshole."

He slams the door behind him.

* * *

 

Later that morning, Morgan finds Oliver in his room, music blaring and an empty bottle of whiskey on the carpet by his hand. Morgan switches off the music. “Oliver.”

"You killed T. Rex."

"What are you doing, boy?"

Oliver looks at the bottle. “It’s just goat’s milk. I drank the whisky days ago.”

“Why aren't you at the stables?”

Oliver shrugs.

“Productive,” Morgan says. “You need to keep busy. If you got up and did chores instead of getting high with all your friends—”

“No friends.”

“I thought you hung out with Joey last night.”

Oliver just groans.

“Get up,” Morgan says. "You’re rotting your brain, son. Dammit. The doctor's waiting on you."

Oliver sits up, his glasses off kilter. "My appointment! Shit. I’m late."

"You’re not going like this."

"No, no, I'm good." Oliver stands. Head rush. He grips the wall and sneezes. "Good, see?"

Morgan sighs and resits Oliver’s glasses for him. "I'm gonna tell Carol about this."

Oliver snorts. "Good luck."

"Actually, I'm going up today.”

“She won't talk to you.”

“She talks to you.”

Oliver doesn't say anything. He does that falling out of time thing again and again and—

Morgan sighs. “Come on, let's go.”

* * *

 

In the infirmary, Oliver sits on a spinny chair. When he almost tips himself over, Morgan grabs his shoulder and apologises to the doctor. "He's a little... under the weather."

“High?”

“As a kite,” Morgan admits.

Oliver laughs. The doctor makes a “Hmm,” noise. Everyone knows the doctor's always thought Oliver was trouble. Gets in too many fights. "This is your new prosthesis, Oliver."

He sees the thin metal instrument tangled in leather and nylon.

"Simple body powered cable hook," the doctor is saying, to Morgan mostly. Oliver is hearing words but they aren't going in much. "It's got a moulded socket, might be a little big on him but you can tighten it, and he should grow into the rest soon enough. It's made of black carbon fibre, with a metal cable running from the centre of the harness down to the hook. The harness keeps it on and the cable makes it operate."

Oliver licks his lips. The doctor gives him more water and looks at Morgan. Oliver’s sure this is a mistake, surely the prosthetic should go to someone else. But Ezekiel insisted. Ezekiel’s probably only so nice to him because he's got a thing for Carol: the unattainable pomegranate, the beacon of _all_ hidden sweetness.

Ezekiel goes to see Carol almost every day.

Oliver can tell he’s turning green so he tries to focus on the prosthetic. He's told to put it on. He starts with a white sock, slipping it on over his stump so it stops a few inches before his elbow. Oliver thinks it looks silly but the doctor tells him it'll make it more comfortable.

“Here, fit your arm into the mould now." Oliver does, it’s a little loose and might take some time to get used to. "Reach around and flip the harness up around your shoulders."

With difficulty, he does.

"How it works..." The doctor holds both of Oliver's arms up. "The hook is blunt, and has two parts with rubber bands at the base that keep the hook closed. Look, see, it's tight enough to hold on to my fingers but not hard enough for it to hurt. The cable works off the lever here on the side of the hook, and when you put tension on the cable, the hook is pulled open."

His arms are put down.

"Reach out, the hook opens."

Oliver reaches out, the hook opens.

"Relax, the hook closes again."

Oliver relaxes, the hook closes.

"You can also do it by putting tension on your other shoulder, and a number of other ways," the doctor says, "but you'll get the hang of it soon enough. This bit, here—" A small patch of harness over Oliver's upper arm, like a small shoulder pad. "—will prevent the cable from catching your skin."

"Cool," Oliver says. He tries out some different movements but gets tired quickly. The doctor chooses to wait until Oliver is sober to go any further. So, once the prosthesis is off and put away, Morgan takes Oliver back to their place.

"I'm gonna go see her today."

"No you are not," Morgan says.

"Wasn't a question."

"Wasn't an answer."

Oliver groans and sits on his bed. He wants to argue back but this morning with Joey was difficult enough. He realises he’s crying. Oliver does this when he’s high sometimes. Cries for no reason.

Morgan sighs. “What happened?”

Oliver shrugs and looks up at him. “Joey broke up with me.”

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”

Oliver sniffs, shrugs, giggles, then shrugs again. “We weren’t even boyfriends.” He wants to stop talking before he embarrasses himself but the words keep coming. “I don’t even know if I really liked him.”

Morgan looks like he’s thinking very hard about something while he hands Oliver a bowl. It’s warm, filled with ramen. “Eat, Oliver.”

He does.

“Aren’t you going to give me a lecture?” he says through a mouthful.

“No. I don’t think you need one. Not from me.”

Oliver thinks that’s an odd thing to say. Morgan’s full of odd things, he thinks, slurping. Odd things and pensive glances and Aikido moves. Oliver giggles.

“Get some rest,” Morgan grins; Oliver realises he said all that other stuff outside his head. “You can think about all this later. Talk, to me, or Carol, if you want to.”

Oliver nods even though he doesn’t mean it and makes a list in his head of all the things about Joey he thinks are weird to maybe make himself feel better. Joey covers his mouth when he talks sometimes. Joey doesn’t go anywhere without a thermos dangling from his belt. Joey stirs things with the wrong end of the fork. And he makes these weird little hanging paper ornament decorations and makes Oliver put them up in his room to keep away negative spirits. Then Oliver gets to thinking about Carol, how nobody knows that he hasn’t spoken to her yet. Oliver waited four days to ride out there the first time on Roan, who's grown fond of Oliver, and then he waited another four days to go again, and another, and so on. Morgan wouldn't get it. He wouldn't get it like how Ezekiel and Richard don't get it. They bring Carol food and ask to talk to her but it isn't food or talk she wants. Oliver doesn’t even know what she wants. But he knows not to knock. He knows not to wait around for her to open any doors. He just leaves a book and a packet of cigarettes on the step and then he rides back to the Kingdom.

He plans to go back today to see if she’s finished _Nancey’s Saint Clare_ yet — the last two times she didn’t give it back. But Morgan's right. Oliver's not going anywhere until he's sober, so he finishes his ramen, and some other things he manages to find in the pantry, then finds a warm and dry place in the hallway to sleep it off.

He falls asleep thinking he was wrong before. He isn't sweet surrounded by bitter. Or if he was, he isn't anymore. He’s a pomegranate left out in the sun, rotted. Not too much trouble, but a lost cause all together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was Children of the Revolution by T. Rex.
> 
> Was ? that ? smut ? i ? do not ? think so ? but if ? it ? was ? screw you ? you read that too ? motherfucker ? aaaaaahhhhh. I really like both Joey and Esme.
> 
> Thanks yozza, for the prosthetic arm inspiration! Hopefully he'll get another go at it soon.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	119. Season 7 ~ Hearts Still Beating, Part 2: Big Bang

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stick around for the end of this one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Centred bit is Oliver. The rest of Carl.

“Oliver...”

_She saw me coming._   
_I didn’t know rust could unrust,_   
_but there she is: unrusted._

“Hello... Sorry... I came to give you these...”

“I know. Come inside, Oliver.”

_/the inglenook is cold but the fire is warm. The coffee tastes good and she’s reading the next book: The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night-time. There’s a small bowl of pomegranate arils on the coffee table, despite mine and Ez’s efforts._

“Oliver?”

“M-hm.”

“Why don’t you ever knock?”

_A bump outside._

“Morgan...”

_He doesn’t seem surprised to see me, and seems happy to see her._

“Just brought some things from the Kingdom garden, some nectarines, some apples.”

“Thank you, Morgan, but I am good.”

“You can fend for yourself, I know, but fresh produce isn't something you can just—”

“Really. I'm _good._ You aren’t the only one coming to give me food. You. Ezekiel. Richard. Jerry. Apparently they’re having a hard time believing me when I say I just want to be left alone.

“What about Oliver?”

“He doesn’t knock...”

“You know, I was trying to leave you alone, and I will. But you called me over. Obviously you called Oliver over, too, or he’d be riding back now. Why?”

“...How are you?”

“Good...”

“Good. _Now_  you can go — except... Oliver and I need to catch up.”

“I think you're going soft.”

“I think you're _going_...”

_Except as he does open the door, Richard is standing there about to knock._

“Hey. Carol, hi. I brought vegetables.”

“You and the rest of your realm...”

“I'm sorry to bother you. Morgan, Oliver, I... I didn't expect you to be here, too. It's good you are. I wanted to speak to all of you, actually.”

“Really, this isn’t a good time. Oliver and I need to talk.”

“Please. It’s important.”

 _Richard speaks about how he got to where he is, finding people, losing people, and finally finding the Kingdom:—_ “I met Ezekiel. I saw what he built. But now I believe what he built is under threat. Three or four months ago, the Saviors confronted Ezekiel for the first time. Ezekiel didn't want to fight, so they cut a deal: In exchange for food and supplies, no one would get hurt, and they'd never set foot inside the Kingdom, and very few of us even know.”

“What does any of this have to do with me?”

“I know Ezekiel likes you. I also know that Ezekiel trusts you, and that's why I'm here. I need you to help me convince him of something. Right now, we have peace with the Saviors, but sooner or later, something's gonna go wrong. Maybe we'll be light on another drop, or maybe one of ours will look at one of theirs the wrong way, or maybe, they'll just decide to stop honouring the deal. Things will go bad. And when they do... the Kingdom will fall.”

_He tells them he lost his family, saw them die, that he’s afraid soon they’re all going to lose everything._

“I'm asking you to help convince Ezekiel to attack the Saviors, to strike first and destroy them. The Saviors’ numbers are more than Kingdoms’. The element of surprise is our only hope. Carol, I imagine that violence and fighting is something you haven't been a part of.”

“You're wrong.”

“You're very wrong. She's probably the most capable fighter in this room.”

“Good. And you, Morgan. I know you can fight. And, Oliver? I’ve seen you with the walkers, and you held your ground last time, that was—”

“Hold up. _‘Last time’_ — what the hell happened _‘last time’_ , Richard?”

“I — I thought you guys would’ve told her about that trade—”

“You’ve been taking him _trading,_ with _them?_ ”

“No, I want to fight. Why wouldn’t I? They took us hostage, Carol. They killed Denise right in front of us.”

“Richard, revenge isn’t the way.”

“Of course it is. And it’s time to fight _now_.”

“ _No._ This is something I am  _not_  a part of. This is something _Oliver_ is _not_ a part of.”

“Carol, I can—”

“No!”

“You don't have to fight. You just have to convince Ezekiel to bring the Kingdom to fight.”

“You're not understanding me, Richard... I didn't want _you._ I didn't want Ezekiel or Morgan coming here. And I don't want anything to do with your lives, or your  _deaths._ I just want to be left alone.”

“Yeah. Richard... I think I’m going to leave.”

“Morgan—”

“People will die, a lot of them. I only took a life to _save_ a life — Carol’s life.”

“It's the same  _Goddamn_  thing! We'll be taking their lives to save _ours!_ ”

“You don't know that it will!”

“You're gonna choose to kill one day, Morgan, 'cause it _will_ get that bad! Why not choose now, before you lose someone you care about?”

“There's a peace now. I won't be a part of... _changing_ that. And, maybe we can build on that.”

“Not with these people! When they turn on us, _and they will,_ that blood is gonna be on  _your_  hands... But maybe you're all used to that. I’m sorry I bothered you. See you all around.”

“Me too. I let you two talk.”

“I don't want anyone else coming around or even knowing where I am. If you somehow see anyone we know, tell them I'm gone. Do that for me? Morgan, please.”

“Have a good day, Carol...”

_Alone, finally. Carol sighs._

“Why haven’t you gone home?”

“What? You asked me to stay.”

“No — No, not to the Kingdom. _Home._ Alexandria. Don’t you want to?”

“Don’t you?”

“No.  But you do. I know it.”

“You don’t know anything. Not about me. Not anymore.”

“You can’t keep running away from yourself, I know you know that.”

“Why? You’ve ran away. You are, always.”

“ _I_ can’t go back.”

“Why?! Alexandria’s just another place.”

“You have to try—”

“And you don’t? Carol, if I go, they’ll ask where I was, and they’d find out about this place. About you. They’ll want to come and fight for them like they did for Hilltop. You aren’t going to stick around for that. As soon as I go, you’ll go.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I can’t be what you need me to be. I’m sorry I can’t be that to you anymore.”

_A few weeks ago, in one of the books I loaned her, she returned my mother’s earrings in between the pages. I threw them into the graveyard._

“You're such a good boy, Oliver... I never meant to hurt you. Go home. If you won’t do it for yourself then do it for me.”

* * *

 

Michonne still isn't home. Dad and Aaron, too. Arat, whose temper could stun snakes, is on guard outside the house. I’m in the bathroom with my sister, watching Negan shave.

“ _Against_ the grain, kid,” he says. “ _Always_  against the grain.” 

I’ve seen my dad shave before; he shaves with the grain — always _with_.

After, we make spaghetti. Negan controls the stove while I get to rolling the dough, wearing aprons. And eventually, Olivia gets back and makes lemonade. When everything's finished, I set the table for four. We sit. Negan, me and Olivia, Judith asleep in her arms.

Negan keeps grinning at my socket.

We wait for more than half an hour, watching the food go cold, before Negan runs out of patience. “I'm not waiting for your dad anymore,” he says. “I don't know where the hell he is, but Lucille...” He picks her up and rests her, handle up, on the empty chair in front of Dad's plate. “...is hungry.”

He tucks a napkin inside his collar. I wonder what his real name is. Maybe ‘Negan’ is a surname. Bet his first name’s something lame like Bart or Shirly.

“Carl, pass the rolls.”

I look at him.

“ _Please..._ ”

Reluctantly, I do, and as we finish eating, Spencer is let in by Arat. After introducing himself, Spencer and Negan sit on the porch and drink scotch. Spencer must say something about the pool table in Mikey's old house because they go and get it. There's a very old blood-stain on the side, and I shiver. The table is set up outside in the street, scotch glasses and little chalk cubes set aside. Negan and Spencer play. Most everyone else is here, watching, standing around in the street. I'm on the porch with Olivia.

“I could never do this with Rick,” Negan complains. “He would just be standing there, scowling, giving me that annoying side-eye he gives me.”

“That's actually what I came to see you about,” Spencer says. “I want to talk to you about Rick.”

“Alright.” Negan whistles, taking his first shot. Coloured balls clat across the table. “Talk to me, Spencer. Talk to me about _Rick._ ”

“I get what you're trying to do here, what you're trying to build—I'm not saying I agree with your methods, but I get it. You're building a network. You're making people contribute for the greater good. Makes sense. But you should know, Rick Grimes has a history of not working well with others.”

“Mm... Is that so?”

Pool balls clack.

“Rick wasn't the original leader here,” Spencer explains. “My mom was. She was doing a really good job of it. Then she died, not long after Rick showed up, same with my brother, same with my dad.”

“So, everything was peachy here for, what, years? And then Rick shows up, and suddenly, you're an orphan? That is the saddest story I've ever heard. Good thing for you he's not in charge anymore.”

“Doesn't matter. His ego's out of control. He'll find a way to screw things up, to try and do things his way, to take over. That's what he did with my mom. That's what he'll do again.”

Negan takes another drink and watches Spencer’s go. “What exactly are you proposing be done about that?”

“I am my mother's son. I can be the leader she was. That's what this place needs. That's what you need.”

“So I should put you in charge?” I can’t see Negan’s face but I know he's grinning. “That's what you're saying?”

“We'd be much better off.”

“You know what I'm thinking, Spencer?” Negan asks. “I'm thinking how Rick threatened to kill me, how he clearly hates my guts. But he is out there  _right now_ , gathering shit for me to make sure I don't hurt any of the _fine_ people that live here.” He's doing it again, biting the words. “He is swallowing. His. Hate. And getting. Shit. Done. That takes guts.”

Negan takes his go.

“And then there's you,” he adds. “The guy who waited for Rick to be gone so he could  _sneak over_  and talk to me to get me to do his dirty work, so he could take Rick's place. So I _gotta_ ask, if you wanna take over, why not just kill Rick yourself and just  _take over?_ ”

“What? No, no. I didn't... I don't—”

“You know what I'm thinking? 'Cause I have a guess...”

Whispering now, leaning close.

“...it's because you got no _guts_.”

There's a shimmer of steel, and then, fast and hard, it is plunged through Spencer's stomach. Olivia gasps. I shudder — every living thing in Alexandria shudders. Except Spencer, who stares down at his stomach. Then Negan flicks his wrist and spills Spencer out across the road. He tries to hold onto it, _himself,_ and he does, gripping his intestines and collapsing into a bloody heap.

“How  _embarrassing!_ ” Negan yells. “There they are. They were inside you the whole time. You _did_ have guts! I’ve never been so wrong in my whole  _life!_ ”

Spencer goes still.

Negan strolls around the pool table and puts back his drink, then comes back and steps over Spencer’s corpse, hips first like always. He sheathes his knife. “Someone, get up here and clean this mess up.”

Nobody moves.

“Oh. Anyone want to finish the game? C'mon. Anybody? C'mon. I was  _winning!_ ”

I see it happen. Rosita's hand comes up, gun flashing in the evening sun, and then — _the shot goes off_ — I wait for him to hit the floor and for a second time stops and Negan will die. _Negan will die._ Just like that. Only he doesn't. _He doesn't._ Lucille is up. I heard it hit. I did. Bullet in wood.

“ _Fuck!_ ” Negan gasps, twisting his bat around to see the bullet lodged into its side. “What the shit?! FUCK!”

He's worse than red now.  
Worse than black.  
He’s carbon.  
Can’t see where it stops.

“You just — YOU TRIED TO KILL ME?!” He's spinning on the spot like a hurricane. Rosita is pinned to the road under Arat’s knee. Negan runs at her, bat up. “YOU SHOT LUCILLE!”

“She got in the way!”

Arat's knife presses to her throat. Negan is pacing around Spencer's body, seething, until suddenly, almost in one second, he is totally calm again.

“What is this?” he asks, breathless while he grabs the bullet from the floor. “What is this? This little bad boy made from scratch? Look at those crimps. _This_ was homemade.”

I don’t look at Eugene but I still see him hiding behind his hands.

“You may be stupid, darlin', but you showed some real ingenuity here. Arat, move that knife up, right on that girl's face. Lucille's _beautiful_ , smooth surface is never gonna look the same, so  _WHY_  should yours?! Unless... you tell me, who made this.”

“It was me,” Rosita says, “I made it.”

“You see... _now_ I just think you're lying. And you lying to me,  _NOW_?! Such a shame. Arat's gonna have to cut up that pretty face. One more try...”

“It was me!” Rosita yelps.

Negan laughs. “OH!  _You_  are such a fucking badass! Fine. Have it your way. Arat. Kill somebody.”

“No. It was me!” Rosita screams. “ _NO!_ ”

It happens too quickly. There’s no time to think. In one second, Arat's gun is aimed and the flash of white sends Olivia collapsing to the deck beside me. I yell and duck on reflex, and then I'm just crouched there, staring at the hole under her eye, the shattered corner of her glasses. I look through the banister — Dad is here, coming through the crowd.

 _This is me,_ I think. _This is all on me._

Dad's breathless. He's been running. Aaron, too, bloodied and bruised like someone beat him. Eric is helping him.

“We had an _agreement!_ ”

“Rick!” Negan screeches. “Look, everybody, it's Rick! Ah, your people are making me lose my voice doing all this yelling.”

Dad looks terrified.

“Rick, how about a  _'thank you'_?” Negan asks. There's blood on his chin and shirt. “I mean, look, I know we started this relationship with me beating the holy fuck out of your friends, and because of that, we're never gonna sit around and braid each other's hair or share our deepest, darkest secrets, but how about a little _credit?_ I just bent over  _backwards_  to show you how reasonable I am.”

Negan points at me.

“Your kid, he hid in one of my trucks and  _machine-gunned_  a bunch of my men down, and I brought him home, safe and sound, and I fed him  _spaghetti!_ ”

Dad glares at me like he's going to scream.

 _I’m sorry,_ I think. _Dad, I’m sorry!_

Negan keeps talking: “Another one of your people, well, he wanted me to kill you, and put him in charge. I took him out, for you. And another one, here, she shot Lucille trying to kill me just now, so I gave you one less mouth to feed. And by looking at her, that mouth did some  _major_  damage. Now, personally, I wouldn't have picked her to be the one to go, but Arat — _pfft,_ I don't know — _didn't_  trust her.”

“Your shit's waiting for you at the gate,” Dad rasps. “Just go.”

“Sure thing, Rick, right after I find the guy or gal that made this bullet. Arat?” Her gun comes up again, this time at Aaron — Eric blanches.

“It was me!” Tara yelps.

“ _No..._ ” Eugene sobs. “It wasn't. It was me. It was only me.”

“You?” Negan asks —Eugene starts muttering about casing and turret reloaders and powder— “Shut up. I believe you.” Grimacing, Negan walks away, his bat up near his nose. “Lucille, give me strength...” 

With a sigh, he turns.

“I'm gonna be relieving you of your bullet maker, Rick — that and whatever you left for me at the front gate. And however much you scavenged, it's not good enough, because you're still in a _serious_ fucking hole after today.”

He turns to everyone.

“Let's move out!”

“No!” Rosita screams. “No, no! Please, just take me!” —Eugene is leaving— “ _No!_ ”

“Rick, I ain't gonna lie,” Negan laughs, “your kitchen is a God damn  _mess_... I'll see you next time.”

As they go, Rosita curls up on the road crying her eyes out. I can hear Spencer waking up, and leave Dad to it — he comes inside a few minutes later, knife bloody.

“Look after Judith,” he mutters.

“Where’re you going?” I ask.

“Brownstone.”

“Okay.”

“Hm.”

I think, for a while, conversations between Dad and I are best left succinct.

After long, I decide I can't stay in the house anymore. I can't stand around the blood stains. Judith is asleep. I wrap up my face and attend Olivia and Spencer's funeral. During Gabriel’s eulogy, I spot Scab walking along the very top of the wall, looking down on us all. It’s the first I’ve seen of him in weeks. His fur is longer and matted, feral-looking, but he does climb down and watch me from across the lawn. He’s put on weight.

Ever since the freezer incident, Scab comes inside rarely, but he’s always around. He leaves dead mice on Enid’s porch, and earlier this week he climbed in through my window and ran away with my hat. I had to chase him across Alexandria, and even then, he turned on me and I had to throw him into a hedge. I think, because of that, this is why he doesn’t come and greet me when I leave the funeral. Just watches. Then, satisfied, Scab turns on his tail and disappears over the wall again.

I go for another walk, to figure things out. _The longer the walk the more impossible the problem._ I get the feeling it's going to be dark by the time I go home. It almost is, too — hours later, while the sun is turning Alexandria pink and gold, I hear hoofbeats.

I stand and watch the gate open from the outside. Michonne enters Alexandria and suddenly I feel ten pounds lighter. Her hand is closed around the reins of an ashen red horse that follows her inside. It has one ear.

“You got it?” she asks someone.

“Yes, ma’am.”

And of every dead person in the world, it’s Oliver who follows her in through the gate. His dusty brown jacket is rolled up at the sleeves and he looks at me through his brother’s glasses. I blink. Michonne, too, is looking at me very strangely while she and the horse pass by.

I tell her, “Dad's in brownstone,” and I think she says, “Okay,” back, except the sound of my heartbeat drowns her out — I read somewhere that mice have hearts that beat so fast they hum when you listen to them; their own wavelength, like colour. I think that’s how fast my heart is beating, now. I'm a humming siren, but I don't know what colour I must be. Oliver must know. He's staring right at me. Maybe he can feel the colours. Maybe he can see the humming. Crap. I’m making no sense. He’s standing right there. I walk, only then suddenly I'm running, mumbling, reaching, and Oliver’s arms open and grab and we crash and I think he says my name but it comes out all crumpled up inside of him. _Oliver,_ I think and think back. _Oliver, Oliver, Oliver!_ And it only takes me one step forward to push him against the mesh and gate, a sharp bash and clatter — I look right into his eyes. I keep my hands pressed firm to his chest. And when I kiss him, we both get blown to pieces.

❂ **:** ❂ **:** ❂ **:** ❂

_Colourful_   
_I'm in love_   
_With you_

_Colourful_   
_Why am I loved_   
_By you?_

_Sending out signals from me_   
_Sending out signals_   
_Sending out signals to you_   
_Sending out signals..._

❂:❂:❂:❂

The explosion makes a crater and we are kissing right in the middle of it. My hat falls off. Oliver is kissing me and shaking his head at the same time. I don’t know why. I don’t care. There are two tiny braids in his fringe. What the hell, I love them. _I love him._ But I don’t say that. Screw me if I say that. Instead I’m thinking and thinking and not saying all the things I've had months to say but haven't. I don’t know where to start. I just say, “Oliver,” again. “Oliver. _Oliver!_ Oliver, Oliver.”

“Hey, man.”

His voice is lower, like someone’s dialled down the pitch in his throat, and someone else has made the space between his shoulders broad, and the hair on his chin and jaw and upper lip thicker. I hold onto the back of his head and look at him. Oliver's looking at me, too. He looks mad. Crazy. What was that word? _Demente._ I must look it, too. Demented. His face is all stunned and petrified. I touch him. I put my thumb to his scarred-up mouth and sob.

“Hey,” I say, “hey. Oliver. Oliver, hey.”

“Hey,” he says again.

There are tears and I rub them away.

“Carl...”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah...”

I pull him to me by the collar of his jacket and kiss him. And again. And then again. And _again_. Kiss him. Kiss him. And kiss him. And I’m growing. Growing right through mouth and body and bones and it’s just me and him and we kiss and kiss _and kiss_ until we split the universe open and a whole new world spills out of it.

Negan was right: this _is_ it...

The Big Bang, itself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welp.
> 
> I mean, it only took 29 chapters,  
> 8 months of story,  
> and 11 months for me to write it...  
> so, if you stuck with them for that long, thank you.
> 
> Song was Signals by Júníus Meyvant — I also just noticed that Carl's thoughts always seem to follow a colour/art theme. Not sure how I only just noticed, since I'm the writer...
> 
> Happy reading.


	120. Season 7 ~ Hearts Still Beating, Part 3: Storytime

Once the initial shock of Oliver’s return wears off, Dad takes his gun. Oliver isn't happy about it, but he doesn't argue when Negan's new  _no gun_  policy is explained. We tell him what happened to Glenn and Abraham, and about where Maggie and Sasha, and that Noah and Heath are missing, and about Spencer and Olivia's deaths, and that Daryl is kidnapped, and Eugene. We've all been asking a lot of questions — where Carol and Morgan are, where Oliver’s been, but he just shrugs and shakes his head.

He looks miserable — not surprising after everything we had to tell him.

“Come on, guys,” Tara says, looking sorry for him. “He’s back now, aren’t you?"

"Yeah.” He sniffs. “Yeah, I am."

“See? That’s all that matters.”

It’s strange how they were both gone for a while and haven’t said where. Perhaps they were at the same place, and for some reason aren’t allowed to speak of it. Except they came back almost two weeks apart from each other. Still, I decide it’s best not to dwell on it. Instead I help make a small paddock for the one-eared horse, Roan.

After that, for a long time, Oliver's not around anybody at all. He just stays in his house. I go to the clinic to check on Rosita, who’s getting the cut on her cheek stitched by Tara. Michonne tells the four of us how she found Oliver, that she spotted him a few hours ago, riding Roan across a pasture. He didn't tell her a lot, neither does she tell us a lot of what she'd spent the rest of her time out there doing. Just that she found another Savior settlement yesterday, and it's around then that Oliver shows up again. His eyes are red — he must’ve seen his room, and he must've heard what we were talking about, too, because he asks how many Saviors she saw:—"Hundreds of them. Maybe more,” she answers. “We're outnumbered, it's not even close."

"We're not backing down anymore," Dad says. "We're gonna fight."

I get this excited-anxious feeling in my chest, like when me and Enid and Oliver would sneak out to Nowhere, like this is a rebellion.

"We can't," Tara says, "not on our own."

"Like you said, we're outnumbered," Rosita seconds. "It's not about if we can or can't. We have to."

"We're not gonna do it alone," Dad decides. "We'll go to Hilltop. Talk to Gregory and Jesus, and Maggie and Sasha."

"And, Enid," I chime in.

Dad gives me a look. Oliver too, except he looks confused.

“Erm... we... went to Hilltop together,” I say. “She went to see Maggie, while I...”

“You what?” Oliver asks.

Dad, visible distressed by this subject, cuts in. “You can talk about that later, alright?”

I sigh and glance at Oliver. “Yeah.”

"So, Hilltop,” Oliver moves on, “they'll help?"

"They owe it to us."

"They owe it to themselves," Michonne says.

We take a second looking around at each other to check we're all on the same page, and then Dad looks at the window. The sunset makes wrinkled shadows across his face. I can only see half of it.

"It's late now," he says. "We’ll leave tomorrow.”

* * *

 

Later, when the stars are up and the moon looks like a clipped fingernail, I spend a while talking with Oliver upstairs in my room. Since there’s no furniture, Oliver sits on the floor and I sit in the window-ledge, explaining my day, starting from Enid and the roller-skates and I'm up to the spaghetti and the shaving lesson. Oliver knows the rest.

“I’m... I’m sorry that I threw your things out the window,” I blurt.

He shrugs. “Savior’s did worse. It’s okay. Tell me about Negan.”

Relieved, I shrug. "I spent all day with him. He’s just some guy. And... I think he's weak — somewhere. He's just good at making people think different."

Oliver inhales. I can see the shadows under his eyes, the thickness in his voice, like he exists just to never stop grieving.

"But I'm not stupid," I add. "I know we've never dealt with someone this bad. I know you've gotta be some kind of fucked up to wanna do what he’s done to us. But just because Negan's fucked up, doesn't mean he can't be stopped."

"You cuss a lot now," he says. "It doesn't suit you."

"Whatever," I say.

"Yeah," he says back, "whatever."

I look at him to check he's grinning, and I decide I like cursing. Especially around Oliver when nobody but him hears it. I'd scream every cuss in the world if it was just me and him and a high-up spot. I'd fill up the whole sky with profanity.

I think of earlier, at the gate, and wonder if I’d overreacted, like it wasn’t what I thought it was — no craters left behind or detonated mine fields or worlds split open and turned inside out, like he didn’t shudder under my fingers and cry my name right into my mouth. Still, I try to wind myself down, settle. If I reeked of Oliver before then now I'm spouting fumes. Gushing testosterone. My every move is  _Oliver_ now. Every  _thought_ , even. But I'm not going to be the one to bring it all up first.

"Why do you have braids in your hair?" I ask instead.

"Like them?"

"That's not answering my question."

Oliver pulls his fringe over his eyes, causing the braids to pop out of his grip like springs. "I like them,” he says, “that's why."

I roll my eyes. Oliver smiles. I imagine him pulling the sun out of his pocket and throwing it at me. My face heats up. He just picks up Patty Catty and fiddles with its button eyes. Judith's letting him take care of it.

Oliver starts humming _You Are My Sunshine_ under his breath. I ask him not to, and explain that Negan made me sing it to him today. Oliver looks upset.

I move off the window-ledge and sit beside him.

“Negan made me do something else,” I say. Oliver looks very worried. I take a steep breath and unwrap my head, and then I sit there, watching Oliver’s face. “Pretty much everybody’s seen it now. I just... wanted you to see it, too.”

Oliver doesn’t blink. It’s hard to tell what he’s thinking. He reached out but I pull back.

“I just want to see it better,” he whispers, so I let him brush back my hair. He smiles and tells me,  “Gross...” and I laugh and push him and he tells me, “I’m kidding. Come here,” and I do, and he hugs me.

When he pulls away, he unwraps his own arm and drops the bandages on the floor.

“There,” he says. “We don’t need them.”

“Well... I might, sometimes.”

“Yeah, me too.”

I roll my eye at him and he makes a guilty face.

I smile at him. “I missed you,” I say. “And I’m sorry I locked you in the laundry room. I locked Enid in the armoury closet, too.”

“Dude,” Oliver says, pulling back. “You have to stop doing that. People don’t like it.”

We laugh like we used to, and after a while joking around, we decide to go downstairs. Dad and Michonne are here, sitting on the couch together watching Judith through her baby monitor. They ask us how we're doing and we say we're fine and then they're just grinning at us like they' haven't felt this happy in a while because they haven't. Dad and Michonne haven't acted like this since before the night Glenn and Abraham died — I'd see them sleeping as far apart on the bed as possible.

"Glad you're home, Oliver," Michonne tells him.

"I'm glad you are, too," he mumbles.

We head for the door.

“Where are you going?” Dad asks.

“The lake,” I decide.

“Don’t stay out too late.”

At the late, Oliver and I sit by the shore. Oliver tells me a story about a king with lots of secrets, and a great kingdom ruled on hope and pomegranates. There’s a lost boy, and there's unrequited love and fist fights and mandatory choir practice, with pig hunting and mood-altering drugs and daily cobbler. I don't know why he tells me this story. I guess it's something from Nell's notebook — only she could come up with things as outlandish and crazy as pet tigers and stoner Stewards.

“So, did the lost boy fall in love with the ghost?” I ask at the end. “Or was it the faun?"

"Neither," Oliver answers. "He couldn't love them, not like that."

"Sad."

Oliver sighs. "He was already in love with somebody else."

"Who?"

Oliver looks at me.

"Come on," I say, "who was it?"

He shrugs. "Some guy. A soldier."

"Do they live happy ever after?"

The pause is strange.

"Do you think they should?" he asks me.

"Sure."

"Even though he hurt the faun? Even though he was using him, and the ghost? And the others?"

I shrug. "Well, I don’t think he tried to hurt anybody. He didn't mean for the faun to fall in love with him. He wasn't who was making the ghost sad. And, I mean, he could still fix some things."

"He could?"

"Well, yeah. He couldn't stop the way the faun feels, but the lost boy can still apologise for the mean stuff he said. And he could help the ghost with whatever's making them sad, too. Just because some things didn't work out, doesn't mean the lost boy shouldn't be happy."

Oliver sighs.

"They'll live happy ever after," I say. "The lost boy and the soldier. Nell always wrote happy endings."

Oliver nods. We look at the stars for a while, pointing out constellations to each other and he asks me to tell him about the North Star and I do, and he looks at me and then he kisses me.

"I thought you were dead,” I whisper. “I really thought you were dead this time."

"Me, too.” He sighs. “' _All we can do is live while losing things'_."

Suddenly, I laugh.

“What?” he asks. “It’s a T—”

“Tokyo Ghoul quote. I know.” I laugh again. “You’re such a nerd.”

“Yeah,” he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fyi: if it wasn't obvious, Esme was the ghost in the fairy tale and Joey was the faun – a faun is a mythical creature part-human part-goat.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	121. Season 7 ~ Hearts Still Beating, Part 5: Munkácsy

The next morning, early enough that the world still hasn’t gotten all its colour back yes, I go and meet Oliver at the new paddock. He does chores while I sit at the work bench, sketchpad in my lap. I've been studying Oliver ever since he got back. His face and his hands and his chest. Oliver doesn't have any bruises. None that I can see, at least. He even wears short sleeves. But he does a lot of things alone now — I mean, he did before, but now it feels more like it’s intentional.

I do a fast sketch of him — over his shoulders, he's dragging a heavy sack of secrets; I know there has to be a lot of them.

The pasture is small, so Oliver finishes cleaning quickly and moves on to tending to Roan. I don't ask how he lost his ear. Lost body parts are something that don't need to be brought up in conversation unless the person who lost it brings it up first, even if that person is a horse. Roan is moody but cooperative while Oliver puts this weird cream on the scar. Oliver whispers to him and it’s as if Roan whispers back. I didn't know Oliver was good with horses.

Suddenly, he tells me, “Watch this,” and slaps his legs and clucks so that Roan twists around on the spot and trots away from him, shaking his head around.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“It’s called a ‘join-up’ exercise,” he says, sending Roan away again, “I read about it in some book by some old guy. It’s type of training that gets you thinking like a horse, or it’s supposed to.”

Without shouting commands, and with small hand gestures, he has Roan trotting all the way around him at the edge of the pen. No halter or rope or anything. Oliver stands there in the centre, pivoting, watching the horse, like he's chasing Roan away with his brain.

“See how he has his ear pointed at me — what’s left of it, at least.”

“Yeah.”

“He’s listening. Focussing on me. Waiting for me to tell him what to do.”

Watching Oliver work is like watching a storm late at night from the warm cover of your own porch, and I get this feeling like Roan is hopelessly in love with him because finally, when Oliver somehow silently gets Roan to stop, the horse turns directly to him, still as a statue. They watch each other. All their attention. Solely on each other. Then Oliver steps forward. Roan’s ear twitches to the side, then back to him. Then, when Oliver turns and walks away, in a single moment the animal is by his side, rushing there like he wants to be nowhere else in the universe and he doesn't — Roan wants Oliver and Oliver only. Roan matches Oliver's steps, leg to leg, hoof to boot, while Oliver walks all the way around the pen without so much as looking at him. They don't even touch, until they do touch: Oliver stops and Roan stops and puts his huge head on Oliver’s shoulder, the weight of it making him shift his feet, and the whole pen bursts. Colour everywhere. Crimson and blue turn to indigo around the fenceposts. Yellow and green turn to lime through their hair. Magenta sprouts between the seedlings and amber swirls in the dust under their legs.

From the ground, Oliver jumps up onto Roan’s bare back, takes a hold of his mane, and flashes me a grin. I almost fall off the table. They walk around the small pasture, picking up into a lope — Oliver didn’t even seem to ask. It’s like they’re dancing. I didn't know horses acted like this. I didn't know Olivers’ acted like this.

He’s a centaur.

Finally, they stop and Oliver lets Roan graze, lying along his back like he’s an armchair, spine to spine. He shuts his eyes, the early sun on his skin. He glances at me. I look back at my sketchpad. He slips off Roan’s back. I'm losing my mind.

Oliver climbs the fence and takes a seat beside me on the bench. There are pale red hairs on his clothes and he’s wearing an old, tatty T-shirt with some famous Spanish revolutionary's face on it. We don’t speak for a while. I’m not sure what to say.

“Took me weeks to get him to do that for me,” Oliver says. “He kept rushing me at first.”

“He’s a very grumpy horse.”

Oliver shrugs. “He just likes his space. He’s kind of like you.”

I’m about to be offended but Oliver puts his head on my shoulder. A breeze rolls in. It smells of cold and dirt and grass. I shut my eye, breathe.

“That's awesome," Oliver whispers. I’d left my pad open on an unfinished sketch of Oliver as a centaur — I gave it some artistic licence; in the drawing his hair is so long it hangs in wavy vines over his shoulders.

I snatch it away from him.

"Come on, man."

"No."

"Dude,” he says, “I already know you draw your own porn."

"How’d you know that?!"

He snorts, like he didn’t know.

“Whatever,” I say.

Oliver laughs, then shrugs. "You used to show me."

"Yeah, well I used to have two eyes, but things change." Sighing, I hand him my sketchpad. "Here."

Oliver looks at every page slowly. Some drawings he seems to recognise, and others, like the ones of my eye, make him frown.

“Here,” I say, pointing to some self-portraits, “these were supposed to be experimental. Cubist. Like Picasso.”

“Whoa...”

I huff through my nose and grin at him.

He flips the page over — his eyebrows come up and he pushes his glasses up his nose. This drawing is of him. Just his face. Laughing. I got his eyes perfect.

Oliver shuts the book.

“You’re so good,” he says to it.

I blush, then Oliver slips off the bench. He clips me in the chest.

"Hey, want to come with me for something?"

"Where?" I ask.

"Nowhere."

* * *

 

On our way through the forest, with the cotton candy clouds overhead, Oliver stops to use his inhaler. I want to ask where he got it, since it can’t be the same one he left with a month ago. And I want to ask how he became a centaur, and if he shaves with the grain or against it. I want Oliver to tell me why he doesn't wear beanies anymore, and where his shoulders came from, and where he got that Thunder 9, but I don't say anything because four walkers stagger out of the forest ahead.

Oliver sighs.

He puts down his backpack, then stabs closest walker and before it even falls he’s knocking the next to its knees and taking it out, too. I take out one. Something in its neck bursts, and hundreds of wriggling maggots spill out over my arms. The fourth walker is on the ground under Oliver’s boot, and he splits its face in two.

He looks at me. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I admit, shaking maggots off my hands.

“Oh. Your bandage slipped."

I turn away, wiping my hands on my jeans before pulling my bandage right, except Oliver gets there first, lifting my hat and pulling the wrappings clean off my head.

“This okay?” he asks.

I nod and don’t say anything, just reach forward and unwrap his arm.

“Fair enough,” he says, and we keep walking.

Nowhere is only a few minutes away, through the next grove. Nothing’s changed since we came here, except the locker looks a little rustier. We sit at the log and with his thumb, Oliver draws around a carving in the wood beside him.

“You thinking about Enid?” I ask.

He looks at me, smiling like he’s embarrassed. "Thinking that it was good you got her there — Hilltop, I mean."

"Yeah, but she didn't need me to,” I say. “I didn’t leave for her.”

“Then why?”

I don’t know how to answer, so I ask, “Can I tell you something?” and Oliver says, “Anything,” and I say, “Before I snuck away with the Saviors, Enid... she knew I probably wasn’t going to see her again, and I guess I knew it, too, so... I kissed her.”

He doesn’t say anything, just looks back at her carving.

"We talked,” I say, “before that, about how you were together. I said I wasn’t upset that you were, just that I wished I could have been there for both of you. She said she would have liked that. And she said...”

“She said what?”

“I just...” I start over. “I think a lot of stuff could have been a lot easier if we’d all just talked it out better. I just think it didn’t have to be so complicated.”

Oliver looks a little overwhelmed, so I move on.

"You were good with those walkers,” I tell him. “It's like you're stronger now or something."

Oliver has this dumb, flattered look on his face.

“You just seem better,” I say, “inside your head, you know?”

He smiles, then turns and roots through his backpack and takes out several belongings — Nell's notebook, a carving, two rings, Lizzie's knife, a yoyo, a photograph of a rainbow coloured zebra torn out of a book or magazine, and a small glass object.

“What’s all of that?”

“Just things. I don’t want to keep it all in my room, in case the Saviors come back and steal it, or worse. So I’m keeping it all here.”

“In the locker?”

He shakes his head. “It’s safer if I bury it all...” He opens the locker and takes out a Mason jar and empties out the M&M crumbs, then begins filling it with his things.

“Where’d you get it all?”

“Well, you know about Nell’s book, and the knife; it’s getting too worn down, and the yoyo is Tara’s,” he says. “The carving’s from home, in Lorton...” He thumbs at the snapped off leg. “Nonno made it, gave it to me last time I saw him. It's called _Il Nostro Piccolo Segreto._ "

"What's it mean?"

"It’s a secret."

“Oh.”

“No, no. I mean that’s what it means: It’s a secret.”

"Oh...” I laugh. “What about the rainbow zebra?"

Oliver looks at it, smiling. I see the writing on the back:

_To Oliver, I found this in an old magazine.  
Love Lani._

“Who’s Lani?” I ask.

Suddenly, his face drops. “What?”

“On the back.”

He reads, snatches it and puts it in the jar. "Just somebody. A girl. I met her, while I was gone. She was my friend."

“She didn’t come back with you?”

“I left. Had to.”

"Did you do something wrong?"

"I've done a lot of things wrong."

"I mean, did you leave because of something you did wrong?"

"No. I left because I belong here.”

I watch him. “Are you lying to me?”

“No.”

"Okay."

He clears his throat. “You know what else I did while I was away?”

I shake my head because no, I have no idea.

He shows me the glass thing.

“What is it?” I ask.

“It’s a pipe, for smoking.”

“Like... for cigarettes?”

“Something like that, but a little stronger.” Oliver shifts on his hips and holds out the pipe. “Here, smell it.”

I do, sniffing at the bowl-like dip at the end. It’s ashy and smells strangely sour.

“It’s weed,” he says. “You know what weed is?”

“Isn’t it bad for you?”

“Depends on who you ask.” He huffs a small laugh. I feel myself pinken in the face. “Makes you feel kind of weird, but I like it, sometimes. Except there’s none around here that I know of, and I don’t know how to grow it myself, and I don’t feel like asking anybody for help, so... for now, it’s going in the ground.”

I clear my throat. "What about the rings?"

"My parents’."

"You took them?"

Oliver shrugs.

“Why?” I ask.

Another shrug, not looking at me as he says, "Guess I'd like to share them with you, if you wanted.”

"W— What?"

Red-faced, Oliver stuffs the rest of his unneeded things in the Mason jar, then looks at me and smiles. “One day, man.”

_“I want to marry you.”_   
_“Ask me again.”_   
_“Marry me.”_   
_“No. Ask me again... one day when we’re old.”_

“One day,” I said and say again now, smiling back. I take an inhaler out of my pocket and hand it to him.

"Thanks," he says.

I shrug, and together we get to digging a big enough hole for the jar. It doesn’t take long, and before long, we’re getting done pushing the dirt back over the hole and jar, and Oliver stands up and brushes off his hand and picks up his backpack.

“Let’s go home.”

“You still call it home," I say, picking dirt from my fingernails, but he doesn’t look at me or answer, just checks around for anything he missed. I sigh. “Oliver... why did you come back?"

He’s going to complain, but I talk over him.

"I'm not asking you to tell me where you were. I get that you won't tell me that. Okay? Just, why? I gotta know why you came back. It's my business. "

Oliver looks at the ground, kicking dirt. “I—”

"Walkers."

I snatch his hand, leaving our stuff, and hide in the hollowed-out tree trunk. We wait long enough to watch them pass, until we can’t see or hear them anymore, and Oliver steps out and looks around.

"I thought maybe you were coming out here to talk about us...” I sigh. “But maybe there's just nothing to talk about anymore."

He keeps his eyes on the ground.

"Is this how it's gonna be now?" I insist. "Just friends. Friends who—"

" _No._ "

I stare at him for a long time.

"You told me goodbye, Oliver."

He looks at me then, something in his face cracking. “No...” he whispers, his eyes wet. “That was you, man. All you.”

After all this time, I realise he hasn't forgiven me.

"I’m sorry I left you," I whisper.

“Yeah,” he whispers. “I’m sorry, too. But...” Oliver lifts his hand and puts the braid-watch to his chin, rubbing it. "Everything works out the way it's supposed to. I needed to go away for a while. I got better."

"Then why did you come back?" I whisper.

Oliver looks at me, the sun in his eyes, like Enid with the moon. I can see the whole sky in their eyes and Oliver’s are suddenly pink and gold and orange, and he says, "Because, man... I am so in love with you."

Suddenly, it’s as if the white noise Negan made me listen to yesterday is gone, like it hadn’t gone away this whole time and I’ve only just noticed.

I take Oliver’s wrist and he steps into the tree trunk. He brushes my hair behind my ear, runs a thumb across my cheek, my eye, and then he kisses it.

"The Big Bang,” I breathe.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

* * *

 

As we come in through the gate, my father and Michonne meet us, looking furious. They ask us where we were and I say we weren’t gone long and that we aren’t kids and that we can look after ourselves, and Dad says I’m wrong:—“Just look at what happened yesterday!”

I shrivel up like a slug in salt.

Michonne tugs on Dad's wrist, and he grits his teeth, defusing. "Have you both had breakfast?"

“Yeah.”  
“Yes, sir.”

He nods.

“Err... sir?" Oliver adds. "When can I have my gun back?"

In that moment, I see my dad remember the same memory as me, of the morning at the pig pen, back at the prison, when I’d asked him the same thing.

"Now," Dad says, unlike he had before. "I'll get it for you. Meet us at home in ten. We've got a busy day ahead."

* * *

 

Most of our people think we're going on a supply run, Dad, Michonne, Tara, Rosita, Oliver and I. It's better people don't know yet. We need to see who's on our side first. As we stroll into Hilltop, Bean leaps into Oliver’s arms, howling, and Maggie runs up and hugs my dad.

"You're okay?" he asks.

"I'm okay. The baby's okay — all of us."

Dad looks at her like he might cry. "You were right,” he says, “right from the start. You told us to get ready to fight. I didn't listen, and I couldn't... I can now."

Daryl and Jesus meet us. Dad and Daryl hold each other, crying, and by the time the rest of us have all greeted Maggie and Sasha, Dad and Daryl are still hugging. Enid's here, too, waiting in the background in that Enid way. She looks at my hand in Oliver's, and smiles. I smile, too — the small and relieved kind of smile. Oliver hasn't noticed her, so I tug him to look and he grabs her. Enid's crying her eyes out, these tiny, squeaky noises coming out of her. She reaches out so I hug her, too, and eventually we pull apart, and Daryl gives Dad his gun back, and everything feels like it's falling into place again while we head inside Barrington House together.

* * *

 

Gregory’s office is big and looks like a Mihály Munkácsy painting. There are tall wood-varnished doors and big windows and a liquor cabinet along one of the walls and a bookshelf along two others. There are mirrors and paintings and candle-lamps. Above the fireplace is a big empty space, like there might’ve been a painting up there once.

Gregory wears a brown suit. His hair is grey and combed-over, and his pale eyes are having trouble looking at us. "No! No way in hell. That was not the deal. You people swore you could take the Saviors out, and you failed. So any arrangement we had is now done — null and void. Huh? We aren't trade partners, we aren't friends, and we never met." He leans over his desk, eyes wide, lip twitching. "Hmm? We don't know each other."

He sits.

"I owe you nothing. In fact, you owe me for taking in the refugees, at great personal risk!"

"Oh, you were very brave staying in here while Maggie and Sasha saved this place," Jesus argues. "Your courage was inspiring."

"Hey, don't you work for me? Aren't we friends?"

"Gregory, we already started this," Dad says.

"You started it."

"We did..." Dad insists. "And we're gonna win."

"These are killers."

"Is this how you want to live? Under their thumb, killing your people?"

"S-Sometimes we don't get to choose what our life looks like. Sometimes, Ricky... you have to count the blessings you have."

"How many people can we spare?" Maggie asks. "How many people here can fight?"

" _We?_ " Gregory scoffs. "I don't even know how many people we have, Margaret. And does it even matter? I mean, w-what are you gonna do? Start a platoon of sorghum farmers? 'Cause that's what we got. They grow things. They're not gonna want to fight."

"You're wrong,” Tara says. “When people have the chance to do the right thing, they usually step up. I mean, people just—"

"L-Let me stop you before you break into song, okay?" Gregory clears his throat. "And, by the way, who would train all this cannon fodder?"

"I will," Sasha says.

"Give me a week," Rosita seconds.

" _Rhetoooricaaal!_ " Gregory sings back, "okay? I don't want to know! I never want to hear another word about any of it, ever."

"Would we be better off without the Saviors, yes or no?" Rick yells.

"Yeah. Sure, okay."

"So," Michonne reiterates, "what will you do to fix the problem?"

"I didn't say we had a problem. You did." Gregory turns away, waving a hand over his shoulder. "And what happens outside of my purview is outside of my purview."

"What the hell, man?" Daryl growls. "You're either with us or you ain't! You're sitting over there talking out of both sides of your mouth."

Gregory stands up, waving. "I — I think I've made my position very clear. And I want to thank all of you for not being here today, and not having this meeting with me, or... or being seen on your way out. In other words, go out the back."

Giving up, we file out of the office.

"Walking ballsack.”

"Wanna knock that idiot's teeth out.”

“ _Stronzo peloso..._ ”

"Yeah, well, we don't need him anyway.”

"Yeah, that's right," Dad says, "'cause here, we already have Maggie and Sasha and Jesus and—"

Enid rushes in through the doors, fidgeting. "Hey, um...”

"What's wrong?" Sasha asks.

"Nothing. Just..." She laughs. "Come outside."

We do — several Hilltop people are standing before the building waiting for us.

"What's going on?" Maggie asks them.

"Hey," a lady with short dark-brown hair and dark skin, says, "so, if you don't remember, I'm Bertie. And I owe my life to y’all, twice over. A bunch of us do. Enid says that you want Gregory to get us to fight the Saviors with you. Is that true?"

"Yes."

"Do you think we can win, that we really could beat them? Us?"

Maggie nods. "I do."

Bertie sighs. "Well, Enid says you could show us the way. I'm ready."

A man behind her says, "Me too."

"Yeah."

"I'm in."

“I’m in, too.”

I look at Enid, convinced she’s the cleverest person I know. She doesn’t look back but I see the corners of her mouth twisting. Oliver chuckles and walks across the porch and slings his arm over her shoulder. Her face is red.

Together, we all head down towards the gate.

"It's a start," Michonne says.

"We'll get more,” Sasha says, quiet. “It still won't be enough."

"No, it won't,” Rosita says.

"Well, we find the right stuff, then maybe we don't need the numbers,” Daryl says. “Blow 'em up, burn 'em to the ground."

"You said there weren't just soldiers with the Saviors," Tara says, "that there were workers there. People didn't have a choice."

"We gotta win," Daryl says.

"We need more hands, another group," Dad says. "Negan has outposts. The geography, the distance, works against us. We gotta get back. If they come looking for Daryl, we need to be there."

"You don't have to get back," Jesus says, suddenly. "Not yet." He pulls a walkie-talkie out of his pocket. "It's one of theirs, long range. We can listen in, keep track of them."

"So, if we're not going back, what are we doing then?" Michonne asks.

Jesus just smiles. "I think it's time we introduced you to Ezekiel... King Ezekiel."

"King?" Dad asks.

Jesus nods. “Come with me. I’ll explain.”

As we keep walking, I realise Oliver has stopped and turn to look for him. His face is pale, suddenly, and his eyes are wide.

"Oliver, what's wrong?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Carl saying, "I thought maybe you were coming out here to talk about us blah blah" was adapted from a thing Lori said to Rick back in season 2. Also, the old guy who founded the join up exercise is called Monty Roberts. He's a'ight.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	122. Season 7 ~ Rock in the Road, Part 1: The Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back in Oliver’s head again whoop. Past-tense, too, from here on out.

If everybody in the world kept a song inside their soul, then mine would’ve been absolute silence. This wasn’t news to me, really. It'd just never screwed me over as badly before, and after half a day of driving, I had slowly accepted my fate.

Outside the parked van, Rick and Jesus talk.

"It's called  _"the Kingdom"_?"

"I didn't name it."

"How much farther?”

"Well, technically, we're already here. I mean, we're always here, but here we are — at the Kingdom. Well, its outer edge."

By the look on everyone else's face, Jesus’ words were riddles.

I sighed. “He just means that it’s not just a settlement, but... a realm. One we’re all technically a part of even though you don’t know it yet.”

They were all staring at me.

“And you know this because?” Tara asked.

I was going to answer her, but Daryl, restless, leaned out of the door and called out, "What the hell we waitin' on?"

Jesus said something but I didn’t hear him because I was watching Richard and Alvaro, both on horse-back, appear along a street and ride towards us.

"Who  _dares_  to trespass on the sovereign land of the — oh, _shit._ Jesus, is that you?" Alvaro asked. He put his sword down and halted across the courtyard from the van. The others poked their heads out. I didn’t.

"Who are all these people, Paul?"

"Hi, Richard. Nice to see you."

"It's good to see you, too." Michonne was out of the van. Richard nodded to her, then spoke to Jesus. "Your friends, who are they?"

"This is Rick Grimes. He's the leader of a like-minded community. These are some of his people. We would like to request an audience with King Ezekiel."

Richard dismounted and told us to get out, and we did: Carl, Tara, Rosita, Sasha and me. Richard was going to speak to Jesus again, but the word, “God,” came out instead. Jesus gave him a funny look but Richard didn’t notice. “Oliver?”

I waved. "Hi... Richard."

"Oh my God."

I rubbed the back of my head and didn't expect it when Richard came right up and held me, then he let me go.

"Christ, you're — you're here. You're alive!" He looked so relieved. I thought he might cry. I’d never seen him cry. Then I thought he might laugh. But I’d never seen him do that, either. He just sort of yelled at me. "Dammit, you really pulled a fast one on us this time."

"I left a note," I said.

"The King's been so worried. There were search parties and — we just left again today to — thank Christ we found you."

“You’re welcome...”

Richard shot Jesus a look. Jesus shot me a look. And so did everybody else. I looked at Richard because he, at least, looked the least likely to actually shoot me.

"There was a search party?" I asked, wondering why Carol hadn’t explained, wondering if she hadn’t because she was already gone.

Richard didn’t seem to hear my question. "Where's your horse?" he asked me.

"Okay, back home—"

"Excuse me," Rick said.

"How do you know these people?" Michonne asked. Richard, too, looked at me like he was asking me the same question. Turned out, I had the same answer for both of them.

"They found me. I was staying with them."

Rick was shaking his head, like there were too many questions inside it and he needed to sort them through. In the end, he seemed to choose none. Maybe it wasn't the time. Maybe he knew enough already. Maybe he was disappointed in me. Maybe he was furious.

My mouth was sandpaper.

Richard cleared his throat and turned to Jesus again. "You say they're a like-minded community. Like-minded how?"

"We live, we trade, we fight the dead. Sometimes others."

They looked at each other.

"Line up," Richard said. "The King is a busy man. And it's a dangerous world. We don't usually allow a pack of strangers to waltz through our door, even if they were brought by friends.”

Daryl watched me like he wanted me to talk to them. I didn't.

"We want to make the world _less_ dangerous," Michonne said, pushing through the cringe-wall I was building. "And we are all here to show... the King, how serious we are about that."

"The car stays outside," Richard said. "You gotta hand over your guns.”

“We only have three."

Rick handed over his. Carl did, too, reluctantly. As I handed over mine, Richard gestured me not to, but I pushed it into his hands and stepped away. Carl watched me. I knew what he was thinking. No. No, I had no idea what he was thinking. He was putting up a brick wall between us. I couldn't get through for anything.

"Okay," Richard told us. "Follow me."

As we set off, Carl's thoughts were turning the air stale. Mine were too. We listened to Jesus and Richard speak:

"Before we go in, Jesus, you have a brain and a backbone, so I'm talking to you, not Gregory. Whatever you're trying to start here, another protection pact, a trade, none of it matters if we don't start dealing with the real problem — the Saviors."

"You know, Richard, I've never seen you smile. I think that's gonna change today."

* * *

 

Once there, everybody seemed to like the Kingdom.

"They have the numbers," Michonne said.

"But can they fight?" Rosita asked.

"Oh, they can fight," Jesus answered.

Daryl, still, wasn’t sure. "Maybe..."

Just then, a group of track boys ran past. I did track a lot. Stuck with Joey mostly. Together, we'd have to jog around the whole community four times; which was around six or seven miles. Joey hated it. Sometimes we'd wait until we were in the fields to bunk out, climb up a tree and hide until the team were on the last lap, and then we'd jump down after them and keep going.

"What is it with you and track?" I asked Joey one time, climbing down from a big oak tree. It’d been raining for a while, and we were both drenched and freezing.

"Not track.” His teeth were chattering. “It’s the laps, I don’t like. We do four laps. Always four. Four is a bad omen.”

Landing on the ground, I laughed. “Where the fuck did you hear that?”

“It's this superstition.”

“Chinese?”

“Chinese,” he affirmed.

I looked at him and rolled my eyes.

"Four's a good number," I said.

"You are delusional," he said back.

I rung out my fringe and flicked the rain-water at his face, and he swore at me in Mandarin. I just rolled my eyes again; we argued a lot, me and Joey. Joey always won.

He was among them, the track boys. He and the rest of the track runners glanced over at us, since a big group of strangers stood out in their close-knit community, though, whether anybody recognised me or not, they kept going.

The others kept talking and it wasn’t long after that, that Morayo Dimka collided with the back of my chest. I staggered into Carl and Sasha, and then I got spun around and shaken by the shoulders.

“ _Bro!_ ”

“Ray,” I said.

Leviathan was there, too, crashing into me at full _Thor_ strength. Lani followed him. Her curly caramel hair flew all over the place — I got tangled up in it. She was so happy she almost picked me up and threw me over her shoulder.

" _Agh,_ _Lani!_ " I laughed; all that time sitting in that van I'd forgotten to think about how much I missed everyone.

Her little brother, Juni, was standing off to the side. He was staring at me like I was a sound that he could actually hear. I signed  _hello_  to him and he signed something I didn’t understand back and then he tied his loose shoelace.

Leviathan punched me in the chest.

"Ack!  _Lev!_ "

"We thought you were  _dead._ "

"No," I said, like it was a silly thing to think. He looked like he might punch me again, but Lani grabbed me again and kissed my cheek. I grunted. I hugged them all and got punched a couple more times, and for a second I was so happy I forgot the high pile of shit I was buried inside of, until I turned and faced everyone.

Jesus was frowning. Tara was shaking her head. Sasha's eyebrow was cocked. Rosita looked like she still had no idea what was going on and that she was pissed as hell about it, as did Daryl and Rick and Michonne, all waiting for me to explain. And Carl? He looked — I didn’t have the words.

"Neat bunch," Lani complimented them all. "Who are they?"

I was going to tell her. Tell all of them. Come right out with it because I really wanted them all to meet each other. And I was going to say I was sorry, that I never meant for this to get so big, but someone said, "Oliver..." from behind me and I turned around and saw—

"Morgan?" Tara said.

He was frowning, like he was worried he was seeing things. People were hugging him and his eyes locked onto me and I kept having to look down at my feet. He came over anyway, hugged me. The hug was heavy, and he whispered to me, "Why did you bring them here?"

I shook my head and pulled away. "No, I... I—"

"Really could use some explanation here," Sasha said.

Rick pointed at me. He’d never  _pointed_  at me before. "Oliver. Explain. Now."

"I—"

"I'm sorry," Richard interjected. "Morgan, you know these people, too?"

"We go back to the start," Rick answered.

"Well," Richard said, "the King is ready to see you."

Lani, Leviathan and Ray were all watching us, standing back now with Juni. I didn’t know what to say to them, so they just sort of walked away and tried not to look too thrown off kilter. The others were heading into the theatre. Morgan caught me as I went. He looked into my eyes and I shook my head this tiny little bit. “They don’t know...” I whispered, and Morgan nodded, and I followed the others inside while he talked privately with Daryl and Rick.

Inside the auditorium, everybody was standing in the doorway like they weren't being allowed in. I looked past shoulders to see why — Shiva, up on stage, growled. There, too, was Ezekiel, in his throne beside her, and Jerry, standing off to the side, and Benjamin. Richard joined them. Sasha looked at me. Rick, too. Nobody was talking. I think Carl was deleting me from his acknowledgement, temporarily. I kept trying to look at him and he'd just grit his teeth.

Jesus walked down the middle row confidently.

" _Jesus!_ " Ezekiel cried. "It pleases me to see you, old friend."

"It pleases him, indeed!" Jerry yelled.

" _Jerry._ " Ezekiel frowned.

The steward quietened, but his grin didn't go anywhere.

"Tell me, Jesus,” Ezekiel added, “what news do you bring good King Ezekiel? Are these new allies you've brought me?"

"Indeed, they are, Your Majesty. This is — oh, right. I forgot to mention that—"

" _Er,_ tiger," Rick guessed, still huddled in the doorway with the rest of us.

Shiva roar sent a shock-wave through everyone except me. I wanted to laugh, but I was also hiding behind Daryl's shoulders, which is why Richard stepped across the stage and told Ezekiel that I was here. I cringed.  _Dammit, Richard._ I rose up on my toes to peek through Daryl’s hair — Ezekiel was stood up, squinting.

"Oliver?"

Shoulders bunched, I stepped around Daryl and waved.

"Dare I say,” Ezekiel muttered, “is that you, young warrior?"

"Err. Hey... King... Ezekiel."

He cheered.

I cursed in Italian, cleared my throat, then stepped forward. "Err... these people are my friends. My family."

Ezekiel was too distracted to pay them much attention. "Come," he said softly, like it'd been two years not two days. "Let me look at you."

I almost groaned. I wished he didn't have to do that, put on such a show. Not now. King Ezekiel was like an embarrassing parent, times _ten_. I noticed that Benjamin was fidgeting while I walked up to the stage. Even Shiva made this strange, _“Brewew!”_ noise at me. I thought I'd throw up, right there across the stage like that Romeo and Juliet play all over again. Me and stages didn’t mix.

Ezekiel put his hands on my shoulders and grinned and hugged me. I got a mouthful of his dreadlocks.

"I am glad you are well, Oliver," he said into my ear. "I thought you had followed in our fair maiden's footsteps, only gone for good, this time."

I shook my head and whispered, "Keep her secret..." and Ezekiel gave me a strange look as he pulled away. He was going to say something, but then Benjamin, in all his surrogate brother vigour, marched across the stage and grabbed me.

" _Dammit,_ Apple!" He was crying. _Jeez._ Ben was really crying. "God dammit, you asshole."

I frowned into his shoulder. I had this feeling like I wanted to cry, too, but I didn’t. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t know _what_ to do. He sounded angry. I got why. I didn't know I was this important to them. I didn't know.

I hugged him back.

"Take post, Benjamin."

He pulled away and apologised, wiping his face. Ezekiel dismissed me. I didn't say anything while I stepped down from stage and re-joined the others. They were standing closer to the stage now, spread out between the rows of seats. Rick and Michonne stood in the middle aisle behind Jesus. Daryl, Sasha, Tara and Rosita were on their right in separate rows. Morgan was ahead. And I stood by Carl.

He didn't look at me.

"This is Rick Grimes," Jesus said, "the leader of Alexandria, and these are some of his people. Oliver included."

"Well, any friend of Oliver’s is a friend of the King, however seldom he spoke of them. I welcome you all to the Kingdom, good travellers. Now, what brings you to our fair land? Why do you seek an audience with the King?"

"Ezekiel...” Rick paused, looked at me, then looked away. “ _King_  Ezekiel... Alexandria, the Hilltop, and the Kingdom — all three of our communities have something in common. We all serve the Saviors. Alexandria already fought them once, and we won."

Ezekiel glanced at me. My boots were suddenly the most fascinating things in the universe to me; I looked at them so hard I had to push my glasses up my nose.

"We thought we took out the threat," Rick went on, "but we didn't know then what we know now. We only beat one outpost. We've been told you have a deal with them, that you know them. Then you know they rule through violence and  _fear_."

Ezekiel looked furious.

"Your Majesty," Jesus said, "I only told them of the—”

"Our deal with the Saviors is not known among my people, for good cause," Ezekiel said sternly. "We made you a party to that secret when you told us of the Hilltop's own travails, but we did not expect you to share—"

"We can help each other," Jesus tried.

" _Don't_  interrupt the King," Jerry threatens.

Ezekiel's eyes fell on me again. "And you, Oliver..." he whispered, looking hurt. "You made an oath to protect the Kingdom." My breath was shaking. Ezekiel didn’t even blink. "What say you for breaking it?"

I was going to yack. I was going to yack all over the Goddamn place.

"Oliver has done no such thing, Your Majesty," Jesus said. "This was all my doing. _I_  told them of the Kingdom this morning. Just me."

Ezekiel seemed to calm himself. "We brought you into our confidence,” he said. “Why did you break it?"

"Because I want you to hear Rick's plans," Jesus said.

"And what plans have you, Rick Grimes of Alexandria?"

"We came to ask the Kingdom — to ask you, to join us in fighting the Saviors, fighting for freedom for all of us."

Ezekiel ran a hand between Shiva's ears. I felt her _purr_ inside my chest.

"What you are asking is very serious," the King said.

Michonne stepped forward. "Several of our people — _good people_ — were killed by the Saviors, brutally."

"Who?" Morgan asked.

We were all quiet.

"Abraham," Rosita said through her teeth. "Glenn. Spencer, Olivia. Eugene was taken. They took Daryl. He escaped. Every second he's out here, he's a  _target_." She crossed her arms. " _You gonna say you were right?_ "

"No,” he said. “I — I'm just real sorry they're gone."

"Negan murdered Glenn and Abraham," Rick said, "beat them to death." I hated hearing it again. I hated hearing it at all. The whole _room_ hated hearing it. But I figured that was good. I figured all that hate was what was going to bring us all together.

"Terrorized the Hilltop,” Sasha added, all pent up, too. “Set loose walkers just to make a _point_."

"I used to think the deal was something we could live with," Jesus said. "A lot of us did. But that's changing. So let's change the world, Your Majesty."

"I want to be honest about what we're asking," Rick said. "My people are strong, but there's not enough of us. We don't have guns — not enough, at least. Not a lot of weapons, period."

"We have people," Richard spoke. "And weapons. If we strike first, together, we can beat them. Your Majesty, no more waiting for things to get worse beyond what we can handle. We set things right. The time is now."

"Morgan, what say you?" Ezekiel asked.

"Me?"

" _Speak..._ "

He didn’t want to, but he did. "People will die,” he said. “A lot of people, and not just the Saviors. It... If we can find another way, we have to.”

Rick shook his head.

“Maybe it's just about Negan,” Morgan bargained, “just capturing him, holding him. Maybe... I..."

Ezekiel seemed like he’d expected as much from him. "The hour grows late," he said, standing up. Shiva growled. "Rick Grimes of Alexandria, you have given the King much to ponder."

Rick tried one more time. He told a story his mother told him. About this road to a kingdom:—“There was a rock in the road. And people would just avoid it, but horses would break their legs on it and die, wagon wheels would come off. People would lose the goods they'd be coming to sell.

That's what happened to a little girl.

The cask of beer her family brewed fell right off. It broke. Dirt soaked it all up and it was gone. That was her family's last chance. They were hungry. They didn't have any money. She just sat there and _cried_ , but she wondered why it was still there for it to hurt someone else. So she dug at that rock in the road with her hands till they _bled_ , used everything she had to pull it out. It took hours.

And then when she was gonna fill it up, she saw something in it.

It was a bag of gold."

The room was quiet.

" _Alright,_ " Jerry cheered under his breath.

This was when Carl whispered something to me: "He's the steward, in the story you told."

I knew he wasn’t asking a question but I nodded anyway.

Carl dipped his head. "And... is that—” He glanced up at Ben. “—the faun?"

Sinking, I shook my head.

"But they're around," Carl whispered.

Nod.

"And the ghost?"

Another nod.

"The others?"

"You can hate me," I whispered.

Carl was quiet for a second. "It's just... It’s a lot."

Rick was talking: "The king’d put that rock in the road because he knew the person who dug it out, who did something, they deserved a reward. They deserved to have their life changed for the good. Forever."

Very carefully, Ezekiel looked at us all. Finally, his eyes fell on me and this time I didn’t look away from him. He said, "I invite you all to sup with us and stay 'till the morrow."

"We need to get back home," Rick said.

Ezekiel looked at him, then back at me. His eyes were wild. The thing about Ezekiel was that he looked the most frightening when he was afraid.

"I shall deliver my decree in the morn," he finalised, then clapped his staff to the stage floor, and as we left the theatre, Shiva’s growl echoed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always,  
> Happy reading (.


	123. Season 7 ~ Rock in the Road, Part 2: Mistake

I talked to Morgan. He said he didn't tell Daryl or Rick about Carol, just that she was here, that we looked after her, and that now she's gone. It was a relief — sort of. Everybody was still uneasy with me, but at least they knew part of why I didn't tell them anything; the oath, and also just this strange and devastating predicament about being a boy with dead parents _and_ an adopted mom who abandoned him. But Carol’s secret was safe. That’s all I cared about.

We attended supper. The moment we walked in I saw Joey across the mess-hall. I should’ve gone over and talked to him. He thought I was dead for the last few days, or had ran away at least. And he _was_ my friend. The least I could do was tell him I was sorry. But I didn’t, so what happened next wasn’t much of a surprise.

It happened while I was waiting in line for cobbler. I was trying to keep a low profile, head-down, mouth shut. I was good at that, or I _thought_ I was — then Joey Song got up from his seat, marched across the mess-hall, and punched me across the face. I made no noise. I just felt my head snap back, and my tray as it was flung from my hand. Broccoli and pheasant and lemonade went flying. I hit the floor, cobbler on my glasses, and Joey looked so tall. He was a tower glaring down at me. Blocking the sun. I clutched my nose, then stood, unsteady.

"Okay,” I said, “okay. I totally deserved tha—"

He punched me again, and before I fell he grabbed my hair and dragged me across a bench. My elbow came back, catching him in the chest. I wanted him to back off, so I could talk, so I could _stand_ , but I wasn’t fast enough to collect my legs again because I was pushed back against the condiment stand instead. My hand was in his shirt and his whole forearm was crushed against my collar. Joey tried to hit me again but I dodged the brunt of it and wriggled free of him, and then I got shoved and pushed and I shoved and pushed back.

“Cease this!” I heard.

I took another punch across the back of my head. Joey was going crazy on me. Somehow I was rolled over onto my side. Took a kick to the stomach. And then I was grabbed and dragged back and Joey wasn’t beating me anymore because he was being pinned to the floor. People were running over, yelling, and Joey wasn’t saying anything.  _He wasn't saying anything._ Joey stared and stared and stared, Daryl’s palm squashing his cheek.

“I’m sorry,” I gasped, and meant it.

“Let go!” Rick ordered, and Daryl did, and Joey leaned on his knees, heaving, like he’d given up.

I wiped blood from under my nose and coughed into the inside of my elbow. "Guess you like fighting too now, right?" I asked breathlessly.

Joey just shook his head. He was crying. "No,” he answered, this look on his face like I was the worst person in the world and I was. “I just don't like assholes."

_Ouch..._

There was a crowd.

"What the hell?!" Tara yelled.

Carl helped me up.

“Step back,” Daryl told me and Joey, and Michonne stood between us, pacing along with Joey.

“It — it’s okay,” I muttered. “ _Wait_.” My cheek stung.

Joey was gripping his hair; black tufts sticking out between his fingers, but he looked like he’d snapped back inside his head again, at least. Or maybe that was because Huan was there, yelling and grabbing him by the collar. Joey shook him off, then, without a word, he grabbed his Thermos flask, which he'd dropped, and walked back to his seat.

Huan apologised to us, then went and joined his nephew. I wiped my face, feeling terrible. I’d caused _all_ of this. Always too quiet. Always getting into fights.

Carl, shaken up, shook his head and walked away to a bench.

Huan spoke privately to the King, who turned finally and told everyone, “Please, my people, continue your meal in peace. Rick, see to it that you and your people be seated again.”

Rick grimaced, nodded, and then he and the others went and sat down with Carl. Ezekiel was watching me, but walked away, too, without saying anything to me, and spoke instead to Joey. He took his shoulder but Joey pushed him off, then Ezekiel asked him something, and Joey nodded, and when Ezekiel took his shoulder again, this time, Joey let him, and then they got up, and together, left the cafeteria. Other Kingdom people were staring and whispering, not just at them but me, too, while I did my best to clean up the mess. It was hard with one hand, so Lani offered to help. I told her no. Ray and Leviathan, too.

“No. I can do it.”

They helped me anyway.

"Why did Joey do that?" Morayo asked.

"Don't know."

"Like we believe that," Leviathan said.

"It’s nothing."

“It’s not nothing,” Lani said.

“You were gone, bro,” Morayo, again.

“Look, man, just let it go!”

They stared at me.

“ _‘Let it go’_?” Leviathan asked — his green eyes shooting me like a strike of lightning.

I tried again to pick up my tray but dropped it.

“We’re just worried,” Lani said, helping me.

"Yeah, man,” Ray said. “Joey don’t gotta be like that."

“He does,” I said, all hiccups and harsh breaths.

“No, man,” Leviathan said, “goat-boy’s got issues. He’s probably got some obsession on you. I heard he’s like that now.”

Ray looked at him. Lani looked at him, too, then me — it was as though I’d grown ten feet. I think someone murmured my name. The whole day was suddenly blowing up in my face and coming out hard through my hands, and I shoved Leviathan to the floor.

"Why don't you shut the hell up?" I yelled, and I was crying, then Leviathan’s mom started yelling at me and I started yelling back, and then Rick was there again, grabbing my collar and yanking me outside.

Michonne, Carl and Morgan came out, too — I didn't know what they were thinking but I knew it wasn’t anything good. I knew they were starting to realise that they didn't really know anything about me. And I think I realised something, too. I realised I was scared. I realised that I never really made any friends at the Kingdom. I kept them all too far away. I let all the mean in the world make me mean, too.

“Oliver,” Rick said after a long time of me refusing to speak, “go to the clinic.”

* * *

 

Not long later, Ezekiel found me at the clinic. I only had bruises, so I was just told to hold a bag of frozen peas to my cheek.

“Ah,” Ezekiel said, “I was looking for you. You forgot something before you left the other day.”

He went into the doctor’s office and came out a few minutes later with the prosthetic arm I’d tried a few days ago.

“For you,” he said.

I shook my head. “I don’t want it.”

Ezekiel gave me a look.

I sighed. “I won’t need it.”

He put it on the chair next to me. I wanted to throw it through his jaw. I wanted to ask him why he was being so nice, why he _was_ so nice. I couldn’t stand it.

I just nodded said, “Thanks.”

The doctor came out and they watched me put my prosthetic on. It left me with red marks on my left armpit and right shoulder-blade after only minutes of wearing it. I kept getting the hook stuck on things, like door hinges and clothes — but, God... I loved it. While the doctor took me through a few exercises, Ezekiel talked to me about the fight, noting that he realises that I didn’t start it:—“...but he was very upset with you about something.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I... I was terrible to him.”

Ezekiel thought about that, then told me, “I’ll advise you as I have advised Joey: you both aren’t to be around each other, at least for now, until this is sorted out. You, Oliver, are on somewhat of a time out. I’d like you to return to your room and remain there for the rest of the night. Your group members will be sleeping in the same quarters, but may come and go as they please.”

“So, I’m grounded?”

Ezekiel huffed. “Yes, you are.”

My room wasn't like in Alexandria. I didn't have any comics. I didn't collect books or flannel shirts or beanies, just music — I had a growing shelving unit of it. There was T. Rex and Mozart. The Ink Spots. Kings of Leon, Noah and the Whale, and Elvis Presley. For a few hours, I put David Bowie on for a while... but even _Heroes_ couldn't save me from the fight Carl and I were having together.

"You lied to me!"

"I didn't lie!"

" _Fine._ You didn't lie. You just  _'didn't tell me'_ right? Like storytime?"

"Yes!"

" _Dammit,_  Oliver. That's not fair. That's _not_ fair!"

"I never meant for it to get so out of control. I know I was stupid, okay?"

"Yeah, you were. God, this is what you were doing? All this time. Nothing but moping around, not doing a damn thing except crying over missing the prom."

"What — what the hell are you talking about? I've been working my fucking ass off!"

"Screwing around? Eating—”

“It’s not like I cheated on you!”

“—eating cobbler? Drinking and getting—”

“That wasn’t all!”

“—getting high? Look at this shit! It’s all over your desk!"

“I was doing anything any other kid would have done! I was getting by! I was alone and I was trying not to feel it! But I was protecting this place, too. I was protecting..." I stopped to breathe and rephrase. "Look, I made a mistake. I made _a lot_ of mistakes. I  _told_  you that—"

"You told me a fairy-tale,” Carl answered. “Like I'm some kid. Some  _baby._ Screw you. Screw you, Oliver. You ran away. All you do is run away! I got off my ass. I went out by myself. I killed two of Negan's men! So screw you! Screw you for making me do that alone!"

I was falling over words like falling down stairs. Broke my neck. Ruptured a spleen. He was blaming me for all this stuff, stuff I did but I didn't mean to do, and all that _mean_ was building up in me like a volcano, so I did it back:

"You got Olivia and Spencer killed!"

I stood there, catching my breath. Carl just stared at me, Muse in his hands and I got this feeling like its time on this planet would be over soon. He looked at the wall. I waited for him to throw at it. He didn't. He set the CD on my dresser.

"You’re right,” he said.

“I don’t think I am,” I muttered. “I think I just made a huge mistake telling you that.”

“I’m not talking about that,” Carl hissed. “You said you were doing what any other kid would have done and you were, so you’re going to do it again tonight, and I’m going to come with you.” Carl's eyes were on fire. "Come on,” he said, pilling blankets and pillows around, “help me with this. So it looks like we’re sleeping here.”

“What?” I said, my hand and prosthetic up like he was a bomb about to go off.

“We’re leaving,” Carl answered, like it was obvious. “You're going to introduce me to your friends. And we’re all going to hang out and have a good time, like any other kid."

"Are — are you sure?"

"No," Carl answered. "I think I hate you right now."

"Okay. That's okay."

"And I think if I sit in here alone for too long I'm going to trash all of your shit again."

"Okay. You can do that, too, if you have to."

"Stop talking."

I did, and together we made two Oliver-and-Carl-shaped bumps under my sheets. I left my prosthetic, so it looked more believable to anybody who might’ve decided to check in on us. The note I'd left on my bedside two days before was gone. Someone must have taken it and, I don't know, not shared it around? But I didn’t know why someone would do that. Still, I was too worried about Carl to worry about missing notes — if Carl’s thoughts were turning the air stale before, then now, while we snuck down the corridor to Benjamin's place, I was hearing _Boss_ music.

I knocked on the door and Benjamin answered. He was wearing pyjamas. His hair was messy, as if he’d just woken up rather than was just _about_ to go to sleep.

"Apple,” he said, “ _dude..._ "

"Hey. Sorry, I know it's late."

"It's so late."

"You weren't at supper."

"I wasn’t." He looked at Carl, rubbed his eyes, and pointed. "Hey. You're, uh..."

"Carl," I said.

“I’m his boyfriend,” Carl said.

I turned to him. “You are?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Oh.” I turned back to Benjamin, suddenly grinning. “Yeah, he is.”

Benjamin blinked, then shook his head and huffed. I guess I never really came out to him. I made jokes but they probably flew over his head.

“I’m Benjamin,” he said after a small beat, “but I’m not Oliver’s boyfriend.”

“Thank God,” Carl said dryly.

Benjamin laughed and then stopped as if he was wondering if Carl was alright. He blew his cheeks out and held out a hand. "Nice to meet you, Carl."

Carl smiled.

"Do you want to hang out with us?" I asked.

"Now?" Benjamin asked.

"Yeah."

“Thought you were on house arrest.”

“Eh.”

He rubbed his face. “Can we do this tomorrow? I keep forgetting my cookie dough."

“Can’t,” I said, "we're leaving tomorrow."

"Leaving?"

"Yeah, man. Back home. We live in another community."

"But you just got here."

I sort of just shrugged. I was good at acting like I wasn't miserable.

Ben squinted.

I squinted back, and asked, "Are you high?"

Ben held up his hand and pinched his finger and thumb together. "Little."

“Got anymore?” I asked.

His fingers now extended until he held his hands wide apart. “Lots. Want some?”

I looked at Carl. Carl looked at me. I looked at Benjamin again. "Yeah.”

“Okay. Let me get it.”

“And your cookie dough.”

Ben nodded his head and smiled as he disappeared inside for a few minutes. Carl and I waited in quiet. He kept giving me weird looks and I gave them back, and then I said, “Thanks for being my boyfriend again,” and he tried to keep a straight face as he said back, “Yeah, well...” and eventually Ben returned with jeans on instead of flannel pants, and a sweater.

I sighed. "Ben..."

"Apple."

"You forgot your cookie dough."

Ben sighed at the stars. "Be right back."

Pushing his tin into my hand, he left again.

Carl looked at me, took the tin, opened it carefully and smelled.

"Apple?" he asked, shutting the tin again.

I shrugged, taking back the tin. Then Ben came out with his dough and a glass piece that he stowed in his pocket.

"Come on,” he said, “let's go find the others. I think it's time for a going-away party."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	124. Season 7 ~ Rock in the Road, Part 3: Heavy

The party was more of a late movie night. Lani came along, and Leviathan and Ray were on their way, hopefully — Lani explained that they were still upset after what happened at supper, but that they were mostly just confused.

“They have questions,” she said.

“Do you?” I asked.

“Yes, but I won't ask them.”

I really loved Lani for that.

She sat with me and redid the braids in my fringe, while _A Hard Day's Night_ played on the TV. I loved the Beetles. I loved them so much that while I watched John Lennon ask a grumpy train passenger for a kiss, I only just noticed the smell in the room, still giggling while I looked over and saw Carl smoke through Benjamin’s pipe.

He held his breath and winced, putting the lighter out. He didn't cough, and finally, he let out his breath and there was no smoke — all lost inside his lungs. 

"Jesus _Rovia_ ," I said.

Ben laughed, digging into his cookie dough, and at his instruction, Carl smoked again, then passed it back. This time he coughed a little and I snorted at him, and Ben smoked twice, slowly, and leaned across to me. I declined, so they went on passing it between each other, Lani joining too once she’d finished my hair, and after a while, Carl started looking very pale and fidgety, smoking more until he decided to stop, and then he was making these faces, like he was going to speak, but he didn’t.

“Carl?” I said. “You can talk.”

His mouth twitched.

“Sometimes it feels better to talk,” I added.

Carl’s hands were trembling.

“So,” I said, “uh, how do you feel, Carl?”

“I don’t know. I can’t... I’m... not...”

“Yeah,” I said, “that happens sometimes.”

“I don’t know.” I wasn’t sure why he said that. He said it again: “I don’t know.”

I went back to watching the movie because Carl seemed to not want me watching him. I knew I didn’t need to worry. Jerry’s stuff wasn’t dangerous at all. Then suddenly Carl took my hand and tugged.

“Here,” he muttered. “Sit on me.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” He looked anxious. “Just sit closer to me.”

I did, laughing. “Are you okay, man?”

He shrugged. "You never... You never... You never said it felt like this." He was blinking a lot, licking his lips a lot more. “You never said it felt like this.”

"How do you feel, Carl?"

"I don’t know.” He sighed steeply. He laughed. “Moments."

"Yeah."

"What if I die? What if  _you_  die?"

"I won't die. You won't either."

Ben and Lani were laughing at him, sharing the cookie dough. Carl groaned self-consciously and made sure his bandage was sitting right.

"I got shot," he said, "sorry, I got shot."

"You did," I said, putting his hands down, "eight months ago. Don’t say sorry."

"I have amnesia."

"You're better now."

"I'm not. I'm all gross. My face’s all messed up."

"You're beautiful,” I said, and I hated how he didn't believe me. He didn’t even acknowledge I'd said it.

He buried his face in his hands and groaned again. I started to explain that he was acting paranoid — sometimes Jerry would do this, even though I couldn’t really take it in, but it always made me feel better. "You're taking in a lot,” I said finally. “You have been taking in a lot, all day, and now your heads taking it all out on you."

Carl gripped my shirt tighter.

"You'll feel better soon," I whispered. “Just try to relax. You'll feel better once you relax." And I was right, too. Sometime later, I asked Carl again how he felt and he just looked at me, put his mouth on my ear, and whispered, _“Gooooood...”_ It tickled real bad so I pushed him off me.

We watched the movie.

Carl kept  _oohhh_ ing and  _aahhh_ ing and Lani kept giggling. Ben was very focussed on the movie. When Carl started getting hungry, Lani offered the canned corn she brought and he inhaled it in moments, even the juice, but we didn’t have any more food than that, even the cookie dough was gone, so I was just sitting in a room with three really hungry-high people.

Singing helped.

The song _If I Fell_ came on in the movie. Lani loved the Beetles almost as much as I did; she was who gave me the CD — only she and I knew the words but Carl and Ben moaned along anyway.

" _If I fell in love with you,_  
 _would you promise to be true,_  
 _and help me understand?_  
 _'Cos I've been in love before,_  
 _and I found that love was more,_  
 _than just holding hands."_

Carl, who was slouched across my legs, whispered to me, "We should do something crazy."

"Yeah, man." I grinned. “We will."

"Okay," Carl said, squinting a lot. I laughed and shook my head and also had to move his face because he started to mumble into my lap. "What can we do now though?" His face was buried in my jacket so his voice muffled. "All of us?"

Lani was mumbling along with the song. Ben’s was grinning open-mouthed at the ceiling; I could see the small gap between his two front teeth. They all looked like walkers; the docile ones that've had all their teeth knocked out and their hands cut off — only I didn’t know if I liked thinking about that so much, so I thought of something else.

"We’ll finish this movie," I answered. “Then we’ll watch another.”

" _Crazy,_ " Carl told me.

"Yeah,” I said, “ _crazy..._ " and then someone new entered the room. I startled, thinking it was one of the guards, but it was only Morayo. His hair was down, dreadlocks all over the place. “Hey, man.”

“Hey, guys.” He saluted. “ _Sheesh._ Y’all making a cloud in here.” Last week Ray and I smoked so much we fogged-out his whole attic; the little sun-window looked like a chimney when we pushed it open.

I got up to greet him.

“You not...?” He made a smoking gesture and I shook my head. “Whoa, Oliver. That’s a first.” He stopped laughing when I punched his shoulder. Ray looked at me for a second.

“Thanks for coming,” I said. “Sorry about earlier.”

Ray smiled.

I asked, “Where’s Lev?”

“Didn’t feel like coming.” Ray shrugged. He held up a brown bag — Ray’s dad worked in combat training, people liked him so much they give him home-made food sometimes, and _Ray_ liked to use what he called his _‘family discount’_ to sneak some along whenever we hung out. “Figured you guys’d be hungry.”

“Guys...” I turned to them. “Food.”

* * *

 

Ben devoured the cookies and Carl and Lani stuck to the fruit salad and the slice of apple pie. Ray and I watched, amazed.

“So, Lev didn’t feel like coming?” I asked.

Ray shrugged.

I sighed. “I get it. I pushed him.”

“It’s not that...”

I looked at him.

Ray found it hard to look back. He mumbled something, the rest of the room filled with the Beatles and chomping. “He didn’t know that...” I thought he would say ‘that you were living a lie all this time’, but instead he said, “you’re gay.”

I opened my mouth, then shut it, remembering their faces when I’d invited them here, and introduced Carl.

“I... I don’t care, that you are,” Morayo said quickly. “I get you not telling us that. I’m madder that you had a whole other group, man. _That’s_ something you tell a friend.” Morayo looked me in the eyes then. “We’re friends, right?”

“ _Yes,_ Ray.”

He was frowning. “I mean, come on, we all know you keep secrets, but this? This was huge.” I must’ve looked guilty, because Ray punched my arm and smiled. “You’re good at math, bro, but you never really added up.”

Ray did that sometimes, spoke like a philosopher. Thing is, sometimes I wasn't smart enough to understand him.

“I guess I just... really wanted to be somebody else,” I said.

Ray seemed to understand.

The others were moaning along to another song.

“I’m not gay,” I told Morayo.

He looked at Carl quizzically.

“No, no, I mean I like both,” I said, “guys and girls, you know?”

He rubbed his undercut. “Well, I like only one.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Congratulations on never having to explain yourself to people about something they probably never need to concern themselves with anyway.”

Ray laughed. “Yeah... no... I mean...”

I frowned.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m... yeah.”

“Oh.”

He tutted. “Lani told us she likes girls. Lev was cool with it, you know? But it’s different to him, when it’s guys.”

 “Well, yeah, the first time I met you guys, you knocked a kid’s tooth out for wearing a dress.”

Ray looked guilty. “I didn’t think, okay? I was just doing it because...” He stopped. It was always kind of crazy watching Ray blush. His skin was so dark. The colour was like a penny, or like the colour of that big red-wood tree out by the gazebo whenever it rained.

“You like him.”

He punched me. “Tell the whole world!”

“They’re not listening.”

He wouldn’t look at me.

“Hey,” I said quietly. “It’s okay. It is.”

Ray waved me off.

Again, he tutted through his teeth. “My sisters would turn in they graves if they saw me pining over some skinny white boy.”

“You had sisters?”

“Six,” he said. “Three older, three younger.” He was quiet for a while. He shook his head. “They was like my edges. After my mom died, it was like they was keepin’ me whole. They was like my momma all split up into six different people. Now, without ‘em, I’m all out of shape. Dad, too.”

We were quiet for a while. I didn’t know what it felt like to have sisters, but I knew what it felt like to have a brother, and lose one — I couldn’t imagine multiplying that by six.

“I’m sorry about your family.”

Ray just nodded.

I thought of something else to talk about.

“Lev’s not really that skinny,” I said. “He’s...” I had to think of an appropriate word. “ _Toned._ ”

Ray laughed. “Wasn’t when I met him,” he said, which was interesting to me. I tried to picture it; Leviathan, younger, small and scrawny. It was like imagining Carl with a shaved head. Ray smiled at me. “Figured I could tell you about it all, since you showed up here with your own skinny white boy.”

I looked at Carl and smiled a little. His eyes were on Ringo Starr but his mouth was all over those strawberries. Ray tutted. I looked at him. I smiled. Ray’s smile looked sad.

“Just sucks,” he said. “I know he ain’t into... _that._ I know. And I been known since I realised I was... We’re _just_ friends. I got used to it.”

“Yeah,” I said.

Ray shook his head. “I just... I thought he knew. Not that I like him, or whatever. I just thought he knew about... _me._ ”

After that, we didn’t really talk for a while. The others were still eating but mostly they were just watching the movie. Carl was curled up with me again. I told Ray that Leviathan might learn to stop hating people like us, that he shouldn’t have to hide for anybody:—“People’re gonna find out one day. If they stick around or not, that’s up to them. But if they do, then you know that that’s a person worth keeping around.”

Ray seemed relieved.

“You should know that you’re not the only guy here who likes guys,” I said.

“What?”

“Yeah. You aren’t alone in it.”

“Well, who?”

I hesitated.

“Come on, man. Tell me.”

“I... don’t think I should tell anybody. But... he told me he would come out soon, so... maybe you’ll find out.”

“Man, why did you tell me in the first place?”

“So you’d know you weren’t alone.”

He tutted, but he was smiling, too.

* * *

 

Once all the food was gone and we were on our second movie, _Billy Elliot_ , I began writing two letters with the paper and pen I found on the TV stand, one titled:  _Joey. S._ And the other:  _Ez. P._

It was the first time I’d ever seen Billy Elliot. There were a lot of songs by T. Rex: _Cosmic Dancer, Get It On, I Love to Boogie, Children of the Revolution..._ and they made me think of Joey a lot. Regardless, I liked Billy. Everyone else did too, even though they were starting to fall asleep around the time Billy was preparing for his ballet audition with Miss — it was that scene where Miss was looking for Billy in the changing room after he’d rushed out of practice. She was trying to talk him down after a difficult routine and he was yelling at her through the cubicle: _“You’re the same as everybody else! All you want is to tell me what to do!”_ And then they were yelling at each other. _“YOU’RE A FAILURE!”_ Billy said, and Miss said back, _“DON’T YOU DARE TALK TO ME LIKE THAT!”_ and Billy burst out of the cubicle and got right in her face. He screamed at her: _“DON’T PICK ON ME ‘COZ YOU FUCKED UP YOUR OWN LIFE!”_ and then Miss slapped him... and I thought of that night, after the welcome party, when Carol hit me, how I couldn’t believe she did it and how she couldn’t believe it either, and how she just held me while I cried into her front, just like Miss and Billy.

Carl snored and startled Ben awake. He murmured something about Henry and cookies, and then he looked over and snickered. I pulled a face, then carefully tilted Carl’s head up so he breathed better. “There.”

Ben grinned.

"Still hurt?” he whispered.

“Huh?”

He pointed at my face, so I touched it. My cheek stung. I shrugged.

“Joey,” I said. “At supper — you weren’t there.”

“You gotta stop getting into fights, man.”

“I hurt him,” I said. “Not in the cafeteria. I didn’t fight back. But... I hurt him real bad.”

Ben thought about this, then he said, “To injure an opponent is to injure yourself.”

I didn’t know what he meant. Maybe he didn’t know what he was talking about either — he was so high.

“Apple?"

"Yeah, Ben."

"I went out on my own today, into the forest. That's why I missed supper."

I nodded. I knew Benjamin got anxious doing that. First time he and I went out into the woods, I wound up having to take down seven walkers by myself while Ben was struggling to take one. I got mad at him. In his panic, he’d gotten out his gun and shot it without thinking. I felt the bullet fly right past my face, so once the walkers were dead I marched right up to him and snatched his gun away. Ben was saying sorry, but I got in his face and yelled, “You _don’t_ put your finger on the trigger until you’re ready to _shoot_ , asshole!” and Ben just said he was sorry again, over and over, and I gave him his gun back.

"I saw her," Ben said. “Carol. She was—”

"You didn't tell her, did you?"

“What?”

“That we’re here.”

"Oh. No. No. Ezekiel talked to me. Mentioned... He mentioned not to mention... you." Benjamin trailed. He closed his eyes. He didn’t get high a lot, what with trying to be a good role model for Henry.

I sighed, wanting to ask if Carol had asked about me, but I didn't.

Lani lifted her head. "Who are you talking about?”

"Nobody," I told her.

She was curled up in Ben's arms. I'd never seen her cuddle. She wasn’t really the cuddling kind. I guess she was when she was high, like Carl was. I think Ben might’ve been a cuddler, too — he rubbed Lani’s shoulder and cooed, "Oliver's got a lot of secrets, Lani."

"Secrets are heavy," she whispered.

Ben looked at me. “Yeah.”

I felt my chest fill with it, that heaviness, and just like that I was sad again. Sometimes the sad came out of nowhere, like a tide, or a speeding truck. I figured that maybe I needed that though — I don’t know. I got to thinking of the storm last year, how that came out of nowhere when we needed it so badly. I remembered the storm trapping us inside that old barn for a night, how it almost killed us. I felt so apart from the world, like I didn't belong anywhere, like the world was trying to take itself back again without me. I was so  _lost_. And it never really went away. But then, in the morning, I woke up and I saw how the storm had left the world. It was calm and quiet and mending itself, and I wanted to be that too.

I didn't know when I forgot that, that I wanted that so much. I didn’t know how. I didn’t know why. All I knew, sitting on the beanbag with Carl slouched across my chest, was that I still did want that, to be calm and quiet and mending myself, and I was glad.

* * *

 

A while later, Carl woke and asked for food. We had none, so we all decided to go home. We dropped Lani off first. Juni was waiting up, his red-less Rubik’s cube in his hands and wearing an oversized purple dressing gown. He looked cold and miserable and tired. I didn’t know how to sign  _I’m sorry_ , so I just said it and Juni read my lips and shrugged. Juni didn't really hold grudges, like Lani didn’t, so we said goodnight, quietly so their grandma wouldn’t wake up, and left.

Ray was able to sneak back in easy.

“Later, Ray.”

“Later. Night, Ben. Ay, nice meeting you, Carl.”

I didn’t tell him that we were leaving tomorrow.

On our way to Ben’s house, Ben told me, "I think Ezekiel's gonna help you guys."

"How'd you know?" I asked — I had to reach for Carl's sleeve to stop him wandering off into the orchard as we passed through. Ben grinned at him.

"Ezekiel was telling Henry this bedtime story earlier," he says. "One of Martin Luther King's freedom speeches." He started putting on Ezekiel's voice... " _Free at last, Free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last._ "

Ben shrugged.

"I think it was his way of convincing himself it's the right thing to do,” he said, “to fight. He doesn't know it yet, but he will, soon." Ben knew Ezekiel so well — I wondered maybe if I was wrong before; people weren't pairing up in the Kingdom. Not really. They were all in it together like a big spiderweb family.

"And you'll fight, too?" I asked.

Ben thought for a minute.

"My dad always said that if you're asked to be the hero, be a hero," he said. "So... yeah. Yeah, I will. Night." He waved and headed inside his place.

“Night, Ben.”

When I turned around, Carl was gone, but I found him back at the orchard, stealing pomegranates. I laughed my ass off, and then Carl started laughing too, and for this really awesome few minutes we were both just laughing. I don’t know if we were laughing over the pomegranates or because he was high, or maybe it was just because we felt safe. Maybe we were even happy. I don’t know. I _didn’t_ know. But it didn’t even matter. We were just laughing and then he said that we were Billy and Michael from the movie and that he wished we had a tutu for one of us, like Michael did, so I tied my jacket around his waist instead and then we danced around the garden singing.

_“Wear a tall hat like a druid in the old days,_   
_wear a tall hat and a tattooed gown._   
_Ride a white swan like the people of the Beltane,_   
_wear your hair long, babe, you can't go wrong.”_

And then, at the top of his lungs, Carl howled...

_“DA-DA-DI-DI-DA! DA-DA-DI-DI-DA! DA-DA-DI-DI-DA!”_

I shushed him and he just laughed and then he looked at me very carefully, like he was preparing himself for something big, but in the end all he said was, "I'm _so_ hungry."

"Munchies," I said.

" _Sooo huuungry_."

"Here, try these. Clementine oranges, they’re so great. Can't take too much though."

I sat there and watched him eat for a while. He ate slowly. He was so laid back, like he was really enjoying it. I smiled.

"It's Carol," he said, out of nowhere. "That’s who Ben saw in the woods. She's who you're protecting. And why you're so sad.”

He wasn’t looking at me and I was glad.

“She's not really gone, only she is, too, isn’t she?” he said through his mouthful. "I'm sorry you feel so alone."

Suddenly, I was crying my eyes out. Carl stopped eating. He shuffled close and pulled me into his arms and his hug was tight and heavy, but I suddenly felt so light — no secrets left.

“God, Oliver,” Carl giggled.

I pulled away and looked at him. “W — What?”

“Moments...”

I wiped my eyes, and then I laughed really hard. “Yeah, you said that.” I loved him. I loved him so much. "Come with me," I said, "just... stay quiet, okay?"

"What are we doing?"

I kissed his cheek. "Fixing things."

* * *

 

While Carl waited around the corner from Joey’s place, I slipped my knife into the crack of the window frame, but the latch was already unlocked. The window pulled up quiet. Joey was sleeping inside. There was a glass bottle of goats' milk on his bedside. I reached across and returned T. Rex and — I really liked that album. I left it on the table with the letter I wrote for him, only there was another letter already there, folded, with nothing but a rough drawing of glasses as an address. _My_ glasses.

Quietly, I took the letter and shut the window again.

"What does it say?" Carl asked me.

I unfolded it.

_'Another Chinese superstition: If you give someone a sharp gift, it means your relationship will be severed. This = why I wouldn’t use the knife.'_

Carl read it, too, but didn't ask any questions. I think he knew that me and Joey had something, even if it wasn’t like the same something Carl and I had. And I think that that was hard for him. But I think he was just really glad that I didn’t love Joey.

He handed the letter back and asked, "What did you write to him?"

"I told him I was sorry for shutting him out,” I answered, “and I told him thanks, for pushing through anyway."

Carl smiled a little. “So poetic,” he said, “like lyrics to a song or something.”

“Maybe,” I said, handing him another Clementine that I’d collected.

As he peeled, he asked me, "So, did you talk to him face-to-face?"

"No," I answered, "he was sleeping."

He repeated what I’d said a few times, then finally took a breath and grabbed my hand. He looked ahead like he only just realised we were headed somewhere. “Where are we going now?”

I inhaled. "To the ghost."

* * *

 

Carl, again, waited out of sight. I went and knocked and Esme's mom answered the door. She was a guard, getting ready for a night-shift. She looked a little like Esme; dark skin and pale brown eyes and big black hair, only unlike Esme, their mom wore hers tied down.

"Sorry it's so late," I said.

"It is," Ms. Pretti replied.

I looked past her. No Esme, but there was a belt hung over the edge of the desk that made me nervous. "Is Esme up?" I asked. "I need to talk to them."

"No," she said.

"Well, could—"

She left the house and locked the door behind her, then told me to go away:—“I’m going to work.” I watched her head off, feeling worried. I hadn't seen Esme at supper, or at all.

I found Carl and helped him to his feet.

"Come on," I told him. "Around back."

I found the right window. If I climbed the dumpster I could get up onto the roof without needing much arm strength. Easy. Carl laid across the grass, in my sight. With a little difficulty, I got up onto the first floor — the roof didn't feel sturdy so I crawled. Made it. I checked through the window and Esme was reading in the dark with a flashlight, alone.

I tapped the glass.

Esme startled. In only underwear and a vest, I could see a lot of bruises. More than I’d seen before. Esme checked nobody heard me, then tiptoed over and opened the window.

"Heard you were back."

"Yeah."

"Sorry..." we both said at the same time.

"What? Why?" we both said at the same time, again.

I shrugged. Esme shrugged too, then sighed. I sighed too. We both got a little annoyed by this, how we copied each other on accident sometimes. Esme was born a day ahead of me, sure, but technically we were born on the same day, from the time difference. I had this dumb idea that we were twins. Unrelated. Same brain but not same blood. Dumb, I know. But it was a nice thought.

Esme retrieved a backpack and took out a small note. I recognised it.

"It was you? You took my letter?"

Esme handed it to me.

"Why didn't you give it to Ezekiel?" I asked.

"I was going to," Esme explained, "but he started sending out search parties. You wrote that you didn't need anybody to come looking. You wrote that you were going home. I didn't want them to give up..."

We were quiet for a minute.

"I'm not falling in love with you," Esme added.

“I know,” I said.

They looked at the floor. "I just... care. We're friends."

"We're friends," I agreed.

There was a soft groan from the ground and we both looked.

"Who’s that?" Esme asked.

"Carl. My boyfriend,” I said. “I'd introduce you, but he's pretty high, unless you’d like to talk about moments."

“Um... I’m good.”

I smiled politely. “Look... I want to fix things."

"What is there to fix?"

"I... I just... I’m leaving tomorrow. I — I gotta know you’ll be okay."

Esme blinked. "Why wouldn’t I be okay?"

I didn’t know how to talk about abuse. I never did. Not with Carol. Not with Ron. Abuse was always a hard thing to talk about.

"I had this friend,” I said. “His name was Ron. His dad hit him. His dad hit all his family. Ron couldn’t lift his arm after a while...”

Esme was frowning.

“You think my mom is beating me?”

I blinked. “You said I couldn’t tell.”

“Yeah,” they said, “about my bruises. You thought my _mom_... Jesus.”

“Wait, so, who...”

They stood back a bit and looked at the ground.

“You?” I asked.

Esme brushed their hair back. “It’s nothing. I don’t like talking about it. I just do it sometimes—”

“It helps,” I said, “for a bit, but... only for a bit.”

They watched me and said, "You weren't from the road, were you?"

Blinking back tears, I shook my head.

"There are other places,” Esme added. “You're from another settlement. Something’s happening, isn’t it? I’ve heard rumours. Leviathan hears stuff, from his mom."

I had no idea about that. Leviathan never said any of this to me. Not once, even though he knew I was on the run team with Diane.

A breeze shook inside Esme's hair. Mine, too.

"I can’t stand your quiet sometimes.”

“I’m sorry. I just...”

“Just go."

"I used to do that, too."

Esme thought about that.

“I don’t now,” I said. “Or at least I try not to.”

Esme sighed. "You can go, Oliver. We don’t need to talk about it."

I sighed, helpless. “Well, I gotta give you this..." I handed over the letter I wrote them. "Don't open it until I'm gone." It was just a shitty drawing of a turtle I did with a speech bubble saying: _‘Esme’s Pretti nice and Oliver’s De Lamo.’_ Carl helped me think of the puns. Esme’s favourite thing in the world was puns.

Esme nodded. "I'll see you around."

"Yeah.” I felt terrible, but I knew there wasn’t anything else I could do — the rest was up to Esme. “See you."

Esme shut the window and closed the blind. I felt like a flat tire while I climbed down onto the ground again. Carl noticed. "How’d it go?"

I shrugged. “Let’s get back.”

“Okay.”

We walked a few minutes, then sneaked back into my room.

"Thanks for coming," I said, “soldier.”

"Sure,” Carl said, “lost boy."

I kissed his cheek and pulled him into bed.

"Oliver?”

“Yeah.”

“When can we do something crazy?"

"I don't know, Carl,” I said. “In the morning."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs were If I Fell by The Beatles and Ride A White Swan by T. Rex.
> 
> Feel like Oliver definitely called me out for taking inspiration from Billy Elliot when I wrote the Carol slap scene.
> 
> For some reason, a few weeks ago, I dreamed Ray told me all of that stuff about his sisters and mom. I remember wanting to hug him and tell him I was sorry for writing him without them and then I woke up feeling so upset.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	125. Season 7 ~ Rock in the Road, Part 4: Crazy

In the morning, I woke up to Carl staring at the sun through the gap in the blinds, squinting with his neck bent at an odd angle so that the light was streaked right across his eye.

“Carl?”

He seemed not to hear me, so I pulled him out of the shining-zone and asked what he was doing and he said he was looking at the light-shapes in his eyelashes.

“That’s probably not a great idea,” I said.

“I’ve got a blind spot.”

I snorted, and snorted again when Carl rolled over to straddle me and put his hands over my eyes. I wanted to say, “I love you,” but I just said, “Are you still mad at me?”

He just shrugged — I felt it. I still couldn’t see him. And then Carl kissed me — real deep and hard and wet; he was crying, and I said, “You’re not mad but you’re upset,” and he said, “No. I’m just glad you’re back,” so we kept on kissing until I asked if I could and he nodded so I pulled away and trudged under the bedsheets, and after, we gathered our things and got ready, then headed off to meet Ezekiel.

On our way, Ray and Leviathan passed us, running track with the morning team. Leviathan wouldn’t look at me, but Ray did. He put up two fingers and I put up two fingers back.

The King was waiting for us at target practice while a group of kids were having an archery lesson. Both teachers were amputees. The woman was a leg amputee, and the guy, a hand, like me. Except his prosthetic was an attachment, so it looked more like a hand but it didn't move at all. I knew them both, but not very well.

"This is life here," Ezekiel told us. "Every day. But it came at a cost. And I wanted more of this. I wanted to expand. To create more places like this. Men and women lost their limbs. Children lost their parents because I sent them into battle against the wasted when I did not need to."

Rick stepped forward. "This is different."

"It isn't."

"It is. The dead don't rule us. The world doesn't look like this outside your walls. People don't have it as good. Some people don't have it good  _at all_."

"I have to worry about my people."

I looked at Benjamin — I guess for help. He was over in the shade practising his Aikido, swinging his staff so swiftly it whistled. He glanced at me, and despite what he could hear Ezekiel saying, he nodded anyway.

"You call yourself a damn king,” Daryl said. “You sure as hell don't act like one."

"All of this came at a cost." Ezekiel grimaced at him. "It was lives. Arms. Legs." He pointed across to the archery lesson. Daryl didn't look away from him. Indifferent, Ezekiel just turned away and spoke to Rick again. "The peace we have with the Saviors is uneasy, but it is peace. I have to hold on to it."

Rick shook his head.

"I have to try," Ezekiel said. He turned and spoke to all of us. "Although the Kingdom cannot grant you the aid you desire, the King is sympathetic to your plight. I offer our friend Daryl, asylum, for as long as he requires it. He will be safe here. The Saviors do not set foot inside our walls."

"How long d'you think that's gonna last?"

Ezekiel looked at him.

Daryl walked away.

Again, I looked at Benjamin, who looked like he suddenly didn't know what was happening. He looked at Jerry, who looked confused too. Ezekiel didn’t look at either of them.

My group followed Daryl.

“Oliver...” Ben said, all breath. He stared at me. I thought of Patrick — I guess I knew why. Ben was so much like Patrick it was disgusting. It was painful. But it was comforting, too. Big brothers were all the same to me. Patrick. Ron. Tyreese. Ray. Carl. They were idiots and they were goofy and they were some of the best guys I knew.

“I gotta go, man,” I said. “I — I gotta go.”

Ben hugged me, squeezing around my head and shoulders and I felt totally safe and I couldn’t stand it.

“I gotta go,” I repeated. I didn’t want to cry.

“Yeah.” Ben hiccupped. “Yeah.” He pulled away.

I wiped my face. “Tell — Tell Lani and Ray and... Tell them...”

Ben just nodded, and then he slipped his weed tin and a packet of papers into my pocket. “Want you to have these.”

“Don’t you want it?”

He shrugged. “Give it back when I see you next. I’ll top it up for you.”

I laughed. “Okay.”

He hugged me again, then stepped back. “Later, Apple.”

“Okay.”

Ezekiel clapped my shoulder.

“Okay,” I said again. I turned away. I didn’t look back. Carl and I caught up with the others who were all heading to the gates with Richard and Morgan. I didn’t notice I was mad until I heard my voice. "Thought Ezekiel would do it," I whispered.

Carl was all quiet and thinking, like he was figuring out a difficult equation in his head.

"Maybe Morgan can change Ezekiel’s mind," Carl said. “Maybe Benjamin will.”

I shook my head. "King's already made his decision."

"Might be a good thing," he whispered. “Now she won’t find out you're here.”

I looked at him, nodding.

"Everything’s gonna be okay," Carl said.

"We don't even have enough to take on one outpost," I told him. "The Kingdom has to get involved or we won't get anywhere. Just by giving the Saviors all that shit, every day, they're getting stronger, harder to fight."

Carl was holding my hook — I wasn’t sure how long he’d been doing that. I took a deep breath, smiling.

“Still got a blind spot?”

“Nah,” he answered. “It went away.”

We all stopped in front of the gate. Morgan gave me a tight smile and a nod. Richard just sort of looked.

"Hey, open it up," Daryl asked. "We're goin'."

“You’re not,” Rick said as we went through.

"I'm not staying here."

"You have to,” Rick told him. “It's the smartest play. You know it is."

Daryl looked furious. He was pacing. I wanted to say goodbye, the others too, but we knew it was better not to. Daryl hated goodbyes more than any of us. I did look back though. Rick had his hand on Daryl’s shoulder. They were talking. Then Rick let go and walked away.

Daryl watched us go, and just like that, the Kingdom closed its gates.

* * *

 

As we drove, Negan was on the radio.

" _For anyone out there who loved the obese bastard as much as I did, I just want to say a few words._ _Fat Joe was not the most badass son-of-a-bitch, but he was loyal. He had a great sense of humour. In fact, we were just joking about oral sex with Lucille the other day!_ _Things will not be the same now that he's dead. Without Fat Joe, Skinny Joe is just, pfft... Joe. So it's a goddamn tragedy._  
 _So,_  
 _let's_  
 _have_  
 _a moment_  
 _of silence."_

Just as we were about to leave the on-ramp onto the highway, Rick had to stop the van. Ahead, blocking the road, were three rows of parked cars.

"Gotta be the Saviors," Jesus said.

“Oliver...” Rick said.

I was looking at his beard so I jumped. “Err, yeah?”

“You seen these?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t take this route. Morgan’s marks took me cross-country. I ended up riding by this school for art. It was...” He trailed off. “Nothing. Not important.”

"Look..." Carl pointed out the window. Across the landscape, between a gap in some trees in the distance, was a factory. "I think that's their base over there."

"Yeah, that's it," Jesus said. "Must be trying to make it hard to get to them."

Carl looked on edge, so I pressed the toes of our shoes under Michonne’s seat.

Rick sighed. "We gotta keep going. We'll move them, and then we'll move them back. They don't need to know we were here."

We got to work pushing three cars to the side to make a path. Michonne was keeping watch through binoculars, and after a few minutes, called out.

"Rick... Come take a look at this."

Minutes later, we’re walking down the highway, on the other side, and find a line of steel stretched across the road between two cars. Inside them were some RPGs stowed away.  _Our_ RPGs. And there was a flip switch by a gas barrel, with cables leading to a grid on the ground that was covering something.

Rick bent down to the line between the cars — tied along it in bundles were sticks of explosives; like the Clementine oranges in Ezekiel's garden.

"What's all this for?" Michonne said.

"Wait," Carl said. "When I was hiding in the back of the truck, I heard a couple of them talking about this... This is for a herd."

"That's why it's a steel cable,” Rosita said. “It's not just for one walker. It's for a lot."

"I heard about that too," I said, then looked at the others, "few days ago, in the latest pick-up. The Saviors were—”

"Wait, you met them?" Rick asked.

"Yeah."

"Why didn't you tell us? Who was it — Who was on the pick-up crew?"

"I didn't know them well."

" _Names,_  Oliver."

"Why?"

“Dad—”

"Because they could  _recognise_ you," Rick growled. "They'd know we know about the Kingdom. They'd know we know about Hilltop."

I felt very ill then.

"Gavin," I said, "Jared. Amelia, a— and the fourth guy never talked much but I think his name was Dave."

"Dave – Davey? David?"

"No, no. Just Dave. They just called him Dave."

Rick looked relived, but still shook his head.

"Any o’ you recognise those names?” he asked the others. “Anything at all?"

They all shook their heads.

I winced. Rick noticed. Suddenly, he looked twice his normal size.

“What?”

"Last time," I said, "Gavin had to have a fill-in 'cause he was busy with some mess-up somewhere else — this, I think. Because some guy wasn’t here to sort out the herd.”

“Mark,” Carl whispered.

I looked at him. “Yeah... Mark.”

His face went pale.

“And what?” Rick insisted. “Another pick-up crew come?"

I just nodded.

"What were their names, Oliver?" Michonne asked, like she already knew.

"Joe. Uh — They called him Fat Joe."

"He's dead," Rick almost interrupted, "who else? _Who else?_ "

"Chris.”

Rick looked at the others.

Carl nodded. “He was the one driving the truck. I — I killed him.”

Rick’s eyes held something then, for this tiny moment, like he didn’t like hearing that. He gritted his teeth and looked back at me. His voice was a little rough when he said, “Who else?”

“Some lady called Laura,” I said. “And a man. Simon."

I knew it was over then. I could see it on all their faces. _Game over._

"What did they look like?" Rick asked anyway.

"I don't know."

" _Oliver..._ "

"Okay, okay, uh — Moustache. Simon had a moustache."

"And Laura?"

I didn’t want to say, but I did: "Nose ring, and— and a tattoo, on her neck."

“Bingo,” Rosita murmured.

" _Dammit!_ " Rick started yelling — yelling like crazy. "God dammit, boy!"

I just stood there, shaking my head.

"We gotta take you back to the Kingdom," Michonne said. "You gotta stay with Daryl."

"What? No!" Carl and I said at the same time.

"There’s nothing else we can do. Oliver, if you get recognised, we're all dead."

My brain was spinning. I wanted to yack.

"We don't have time to talk about it now," Sasha said. "We  _need_ these explosives."

"Yeah," Rick agreed. “Yeah, okay.” He looked along the cable. "But we have to figure out how to disarm it first."

Rosita crouched in front of the covered grid and pulled the cover up, revealing a dug hole in which a battery sat, and three blue rectangular sacks. There were wires everywhere. I pushed my glasses up my nose and blinked a few times. Tara put her hands up and stepped away.

"Backing up is  _not_  gonna make a difference if this thing goes off,” Rosita said.

"This crazy enough for you?" I asked Carl.

"Totally," he laughed, breath shaking.

 _"We got ourselves a red situation,”_ Negan announced from Jesus’ pocket. He held the talkie up. “ _I need a search party. See if Daryl ran home like the dumb animal that he is."_

" _On it."_ Simon. _"Be there in time for lunch."_

" _Turn that sleepy little burg upside down!"_

"We gotta go," Michonne said. "We gotta get there before them, but we need these. We need to clear a path anyway."

"Yeah," Rick agreed. "Alright." His eyes were crazy. He tilted his head down at the mechanism. " _Rosita?_ "

She un-clipped something, then something else, then, slowly, she lifted the battery out from the rig and looked up at him. "First part's done."

I heard Carl start breathing again.

"What now?" Michonne asked.

Rosita pointed. "We gotta unwrap the secondary explosives; the dynamite, the RPGs. Make sure these casings are _not_ messed up, and do _not_ mess them up, either. This thing could still blow."

"You all heard her. Let's go."

We got on it, but even with a hook and a hand, I needed a hand and _a hand_ for this — I discovered this by dropping a bundle of explosives and I stood there and waited to blow up but I didn’t and Rosita screamed Spanish at me.

“Go to the car,” she said finally. “Load.”

“Okay,” I said, stepping away from the sticks.

Tara and Carl helped collect when Rosita told us to:—"You can load the explosives into the trunk as long as they're in good shape. No dents, no tears. They're not live. They still need to be triggered to be set off."

She snatched one that Tara had.

"Not that one. I don't like the way it looks."

"Okay."

Rosita left it a few yards away and the rest of us kept working. Something caught my attention in the distance on the highway. "Oh no..."

The herd was coming.

"Dad. Look."

Rick’s eyes followed Carl’s finger.

"Okay,” he said. “There they are. But they're far. We still have time!"

"You sure?" Sasha asked.

"We need these," Rick answered. "And we need to get the cars back in front of the on-ramp."

"They'll know we took their explosives, so does it matter?" Jesus asked.

"We want that herd to stay on the highway."

"Why?" Tara asked.

"We may need it."

"Okay," Rosita said. "Tara, Carl, Oliver, come on!" We got in. Tara drove us to the on-ramp while Rick, Michonne, Sasha and Jesus stayed and collected the rest of the explosives. We worked as fast as we could. Rosita sat in the cars and Tara, Carl and I pushed them up-hill back to where we found them. It was hard work but it didn’t take a long time, and it took even less time for the walkers to be right on our tail.

"Uh... cutting it kinda close, guys," Tara warned.

“We’re gonna get trapped,” Carl said.

"Hurry," I said, getting in the van and starting up. “Carl, come on, man!” He was staring at the others who were still unrigging the explosives. " _Dude!_ "

Rosita pulled his sleeve.

"Dammit!" Carl growled.

"We'll figure it out," she said.

They were in, winding up the windows — we had to lean right back to dodge the arms and teeth — the walkers shook the whole van — I looked for the others but they were gone.

"W— Where are they?!" Carl gasped.

“I don’t know.”

“Your dad and Michonne got in the cars,” Tara said.

“I saw them, too,” Rosita said.

“What are they doing?” he asked.

"Maybe they’ll hot-wire them," I said. They all gave me a weird look. “What? It’s what they did in Terminator!"

_This was crazy._

“Shit,” Carl said, and cursed again. “ _Dammit!_ "

“No, no, look!” Rosita said. We did. And we heard it too: the car horns. Some walkers were following it — most of them where. Through the moving bodies, we saw both Rick and Michonne sitting up in the cars. Engines revved. It was hard to see. I thought I saw Rick stick his arm out the window; he brought it up, his arm, then swung it down.

I’d seen a lot of crazy shit in my life before then, but what happened next was new-level of crazy — this was insane. The walkers were mowed down like grass, sliced into a million by the steel cable between the speeding cars. Legs and arms and heads went flying. Blood sprayed into the air like sprinklers, made shadows in the sky, then finally, Rick and Michonne skidded to a stop parallel to each other just ahead. The cable was like a bad fence — it wouldn't hold all of them but it would hold enough.

Rick and Michonne were out. Michonne was further away but she got to the van faster. Rick was mobbed. He twisted and turned and fought his way through, and then he flipped the door open and collapsed inside the van. The walkers slammed the door shut and I hit the gas. For a few seconds, the car was full of revving and panting. We were sweating. My body was thrumming. But we did it. _We did it._ We got away and it was ov—

The highway exploded.

As far away as we were, the van still shuddered against the shockwave. I flinched. I watched the sky turn to fire. It made a mushroom cloud. The smoke bubbled up through the air and drifted through the breeze, and as it did, Rosita, in the passenger seat, shook her head.

"Yeah, I didn't like the look of that shit at all."

From behind, Carl grabbed my shoulders and kissed the back of my head — I saw his face through the mirror crumple up into a grin. Mine, too. I was wrecked. Carl slapped my shoulders a few times and I laughed.

"I pushed it..." Rick groaned. "I pushed it."

Michonne rubbed his shoulder and buried her face in his neck, grinning. "We're here," she told him. "You can smile. We made it. We can make it. We can. We're the ones who _live_."

Carl let go of my shoulders and looked at me through the rear-view mirror.

"Seriously, man,” I laughed, “when you told me about the Big Bang, this was _not_ what I had in mind."

He laughed so hard his eyes watered and he doubled forward into the back of my chair. Rick patted Carl’s back.

"Where are Sasha and Jesus?" Tara asked, bent over the far seats putting the leftover dynamite sticks in the back.

"They're going to Hilltop," Michonne answered. "They're gonna tell Maggie we're not giving up."

After a minute or so of driving, I looked at Rick.

"Hey,” I said, “does this mean you're an old man now?"

Rick laughed hard, then stopped and said, "Eyes on the road, son."

Rosita changed gear for me.

I was still grinning. “Yes, sir.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I enjoyed the Terminator reference. Also, in April (2017) I looked into the sun the same way Carl did... I've still got a blind spot in my right eye. I'm an idiot.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	126. Season 7 ~ Rock in the Road, Part 5: My Best Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First bit’s Carl, rest of Oliver.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I MET LUCY CHRISTOPHER! Remember back in chapter 20, when Oliver went home to put down his parents? I put in notes that the chapter was inspired by Stolen, one of my favourite books, written... by... LUcY... CHrisTOpER! She was my fucking lecturer! She read part of the book to us! She let me take a photo with her (I forgot how to smile) she was so spectacular!
> 
> Also, holy shit, Gael, use your words, with your mouth, not just your damn keyboard.

"Where’s the car?"

"It’s somewhere safe."

“And Oliver?”

“Him, too.”

"You didn't find anything?"

"No. Listen, we need to get everyone ready—”

"Rick! Hello. _And..._ hello again, Carl."

"Simon. We thought it'd be longer..."

"Do you think we're here for a tribute? Do you?"

"Is there another reason?"

"There is. We're here for Daryl."

"Negan took Daryl."

"Oh... But then your son showed up, Daryl went missing — might those two things be connected?"

"They're not. We didn't know he was gone ‘till right now."

"Then this should be easy. Now, everyone find a buddy. Gonna have to follow us around. If he's here, we really need you all to see him die."

...

"Wow. These are some bare shelving units. You guys have a barbecue or something and not invite us? _Seriously,_  this is sad. Hope you're not trying to hide stuff from us, 'cause that generally doesn't go over very well."

"We have a lot of people. It's getting harder to find stuff, and our focus lately has been on finding things that Negan might want. We're still adjusting to the new system."

"We were gonna scavenge more today. If you just wait, we'll bring something back. We'll find more."

" _Aww... Relax!_ I'm not here for a pick-up. Good thing. But that day is coming, so you best do whatever you need to. Dig deep. Go the extra mile. Take some  _risks!_ "

"We will."

"Well  _we_  will appreciate that... Thank you for the cooperation, Rick. My apologies for leaving the place a bit of a mess, but we got a litany of other  _shit_ to attend to! So do you, I guess. Tick-tock. Chop-chop."

_Ta, ta..._

"Oh! And, Rick, if Daryl does turn up here. Two days from now. Two months from now. Hell, two years from now. Just know there's no statute of limitations on this. Keep that hatchet handy. You're gonna need it if he turns up with you people... And it won't turn out the way it did for your boy."

...

"What happened to the pantry?"

"We don't know. And we need to talk about Gabriel."

"Where is he?"

"He was on watch, the night you all went to... scavenge. I was supposed to take over for him in the morning. He wasn't at his post."

"Pantry was cleared out and a car was gone."

"No one's seen him since."

"That sonovabitch! He stole our shit and ran."

"That's... what it looks like."

"I don't want to believe it."

"I  _don't_  believe it. That's not Gabriel. He wouldn't do that to us."

"I thought he changed, too, but it can't be _anything_ else."

"Yes it can."

* * *

 

I’d found a comfortable seat on the roof of the van. Around me, the forest was alive and watching me and I was watching it back — its branches and its moss and its ivy and its insects. I listened to the trees talk and the wind sing and the ground mumble.

Suddenly, a bird threw itself out of a tree and flew right over my head into the forest. Leaves fell in its wake; some landed on the roof. I picked them up with my prosthetic and tried dropped them over the side; kept letting go too early.

_I’ll work on it._

A twig snapped not far away. Then another. _Crunch, crunch, crunch._ I stood up, aimed my Thunder, and Scab stepped out from behind a tree.

I lowered my gun.

Scab rubbed against the tree trunk, bushy, matted tail flicking left to right, then jumped up onto the hood and strolled across the windscreen towards me, purring away. We sat for a while in quiet; purring and petting and watching the forest. And this was how Carl and Eric found me. I made this useless attempt to climb off of the van before Eric could see what was inside, but before I even put a leg over the side, he held up a hand and said, “Save it. I already know.”

“Oh,” I said. “Cool.”

Eric looked unconvinced.

“You found Scab,” Carl said.

“She was missing?” I asked.

“Freezer incident.”

“Freezer incident?”

“Saviours.”

“Oh. Poor baby.”

Carl bit back a snort and said, “She?”

“She,” I said, but he looked sceptical so I picked her up to show her belly. It was wriggling. “She’s pregnant.”

Eric grinned.

Carl looked put-off. “Thought we were just overfeeding him — her.”

I put Scab down when she started thrashing. Carl tried to pet her but she hissed and ran away. He sighed, and for a few seconds he and Eric were both just standing there not saying anything, so finally, I addressed the elephant in the room.

“What happened?”

“Gabriel was kidnapped.”

“We don’t know who took him. But they took all our food, too.”

“Saviors?”

“No. Someone else. Gabe left a message. _‘Boat’._ ”

“Some of the others went to rescue him.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Aaron,” Eric said. “Rick, Michonne, Tara, Sasha and Rosita.” He squinted up at me. “Come on, we should head back.”

“Eric?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Can we stay out here for a little while, me and Carl?”

Eric looked at us apprehensively.

“Please?” I asked.

Carl wasn’t saying anything. His arms were folded and he leaned against the van door. I guess Eric trusted us. Or I guess he was just tired and missed Aaron, because he sighed and did this strange head-bobbing thing and waved an arm.

“Alright,” he said, “but it’s gonna be dark soon. Come home before then.”

I nodded.

Eric pointed. “ _Before_ then.”

“Yessir.”

Eric nodded, then walked away. I watched him, and when he was gone, I backed up to stand beside Carl against the door. He was looking at the ground, stressed, even if he hadn’t said so.

“Think there’ll be a fight?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Are you afraid?”

“Yeah.”

“Me, too.”

The forest rustled around us and Carl sighed; it shuddered.

“You can’t go,” he whispered. “Not with everything happening. We need you. _I_ need you.”

I looked at him and shook my head. “You’re gonna be fine, man.” And I must’ve sounded mad because he looked at me in this crazy intense way like he might burst into tears or hit me.

“No,” he said. “If we’re gonna die, we’re gonna die, right?”

I frowned at him.

“This is... This is...” The right word got lost inside his head and then he threw his head back and groaned, “I don’t know!”

_I don’t know,_ I thought too. _Hell, who knew anything anymore?_

He was pacing. He rubbed his face and turned to me. “You can shave. You can take off your glasses. You can put on a beanie again. They won’t recognise you.”

“Carl,” I whispered, “I have one hand.”

He sank. I saw it. God, it was awful.

“And a _huge ass_ under-bite,” I added.

Carl pushed me with his chest, only he didn’t pull back again, so we were just pressed together and I put my face in his neck, under all his hair. He put his hands in my pockets. Felt nice.

“Let’s just go,” Carl whispered. “You and me, for a few days.”

“We can’t do that.”

He sighed. “I know.”

I looked into his eyes and imagined I was swimming in them — backstroke, front stroke, dive, _plunge..._ I wasn’t even sure I knew _how_ to swim. Not very well, at least.

“If we go back, it’ll be real,” he whispered, because Gabriel was missing and there was no food or guns or weapons left. The Saviors were coming back soon. They had Eugene. Noah and Heath were _still_ gone. And I had to go away again.

“I don’t want it to be real,” Carl told me, “not yet...” so none of it was real. Not for a little while longer, at least. We laid on the van roof and drew our names with each other’s hair, and then, as close to sundown as we could make it, we went home.

The others got back almost the same time we did. Gabriel was among them; a little worse for wear, but well. Rick had a bloody hand that Tara was bandaging up in the clinic. He said he’d gotten a nail through it. Carl was horrified. After some explanation, it turned out that the group who took Gabriel had let him go, returned our food too, and furthermore, made allies with us.

On one condition.

We get them guns.

“Rick and I’ll go out looking tomorrow,” Michonne said.

“How long will you be gone?” Carl asked.

“Two days.”

“Maybe more,” Rick added, giving Michonne a wink that I don’t think he meant for me to notice. Carl, who hadn’t noticed, nodded to them, then took my hand.

“Night, boys.”

* * *

 

_That night, I dreamed of the snow. I dreamed I was doing target practice with my Thunder 9 in the snow. And I guess I sort of knew I was dreaming because I’d had this dream all the time. Except I was alone this time. I looked around to be sure. Yes. Alone. Except for Carl standing in place of the target. Only this time I noticed him. This time, I put down my Thunder, and there came no lightning... and then we weren’t in the snow anymore. We were inside the van. And we were making love inside the van. Triggering the explosives. Catching fire to the sticks. And I got this feeling like maybe I didn’t care if the whole vehicle blew up, that I only cared that it was just me and him and it was the best feeling in the universe._

_...kapow..._

I remember jolting awake. My brain was all slow and my body felt light and floaty, all of a sudden, like that feeling right after sex. Groggy, I looked over at Carl. I hoped I hadn’t woken him but I had. He was staring at me like he wasn’t sure how to react.

“What was that?” he asked me.

“Nothing,” I said, pushing sweaty hair out of my face. “Uh... nothing, man.”

Carl snorted. “Okay.”

My face was burning.

“I should take a cold shower,” I said.

“Don’t bother.”

He sat up and pulled off his T-shirt, then asked me to pull off mine, too:—“You’re all sweaty.”

I took it off and laid there, trying not to think of the dream.

“You were talking in your sleep,” he whispered.

“What did I say?”

“My name,” he said.

I shoved him and he laughed at me and then he was just looking at me in that way like he wanted to kiss me, all foggy in the moonlight, so I leaned over and kissed him.

“Oliver?” he mumbled. “I gotta ask you somethin’.”

I nodded, head on my hand. “Okay, shoot.”

Carl looked right at me. “Is... the next few days gonna be goodbye?”

I was quiet for a while. I could feel my face twist up into a frown. “You think that I’m gonna go back to Kingdom and... and...” Carl was just looking at me. I didn’t want to finish my sentence, and I didn’t want it to sound like an accusation, so I just sighed and laid back.

We both didn’t speak for a few minutes.

“You were right about me,” I confessed, “at the Kingdom. I was moping around. I mean, I was helping with the pick-ups, trying to make Carol happy... but when I was on my own, when it’d get bad, in my head.” I sighed. Words were difficult. “I don’t know. I can make it go away sometimes, but sometimes... I just can’t. That’s when I’d do that stuff. Fool around with those girls. With Esme. And Joey. It — it was never _just_ wanting somebody. I mean, it was... but it was never _them._ Not really. It just... I... I don’t know. Does any of that... make any sense? I get it, if it doesn’t.”

“I’ve only ever been with you,” he said, blurting it a little. “Nobody’s ever gonna make me feel the way you do.”

I looked at him, and then I looked away.

“Do you want it to be goodbye?”

He _actually_ asked me that.

I looked at him. I couldn’t speak. I thought that maybe he was asking because _he_ wanted it to be a goodbye, and I wasn’t sure I could hear that.

He inhaled. “Do you ever think that... we were only together... because we were the only kids around?”

My chin was shaking. I had to wipe my eyes.

“You were my best friend,” I said, and I wanted to tell him that he still was. I wanted to tell him that I could hardly believe that he existed sometimes, him who got shot twice, him who looked at deer and thought of beauty and happiness and safety, him who put other people’s lives before his own and could never ignore a cry for help. He could see the whole universe in people’s eyes, in _mine_ , and I wanted to tell him that I was never going to be the same after knowing him, and that somehow, even though it was him who lost his memory, it felt more like it was _me_ who’d been remembering all of that. I wanted to tell him. _I wanted to tell him._ But like always, the words were lost inside my head and I just looked at him and said again, “You were my best friend.”

He leaned over and kissed me, then curled up to my chest.

“Pansy,” he said, and I laughed, and he bit my laugh. “Sorry,” he said, “I... I don’t know why I did that.” Biting was kind of a weird subject for us.

I stared at him, and then I laughed.

“Kinda liked it,” I said.

“Should— Should I do it again?”

I laughed and kissed him and he did do it again, and I shuddered. And shuddered again. He looked into my eyes a lot, even when he’d kiss me, and I remember thinking that it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my whole life.

“It’s not goodbye,” I said.

And he whispered back, “I believe you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're well overdue for some good old fluff, so expect that and almost nothing else for the next few.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	127. Season 7 ~ Say Yes, Part 1: Four Days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one’s in Carl’s brain.

There were four days.

Four awesome days.

_Day one,_

and Oliver and I were driving. Dad and Michonne gave us their blessing while they were loading the eagle truck for their own run:—“But why?”

“More eyes out there looking for guns the better, right?”

“Sure, I guess.”

“These parts are pretty dry. That’s why your dad and I are going out so far.”

“Yeah, son.”

“Yeah, but, what if something was left behind? Wouldn’t hurt to let us try, would it?”

Dad thought about it. Michonne, too. They looked at each other. Then they looked at us. “Back by sundown, deal?”

“Deal.”  
“Yes, ma’am.”

“Be good.”

“Will.”

I had this weird excited feeling like we were lying.

“So, where are we going _really?_ ” I asked, my feet up on the dashboard and Wolverine propped in front of my face.

“What?” Oliver asked.

I put the comic down and gave him a look. Oliver smirked, eyes on the road. He rubbed the bristles on his chin, a toothpick in his mouth — said it was to distract him from wanting to smoke. Think he just thought he looked cool.

“C’mon,” I insisted. “You said west. This is _south_. You’re up to something — I know it.”

Oliver waved his prosthetic. “You said you wanted us to go, just you and me,” he said, and I tried not to grin but it was useless. The morning sun was behind his head, made all his edges glow, catching the small hairs on his neck and chin and forearms.

“Remember that school I mentioned to your dad,” Oliver said, “on the way back along the highway?”

I nodded.

Oliver took the pick out of his mouth with his prosthetic, smirked, then put it back in. “That’s where we’re going,” he said, cool air blowing his hair around.

“You said it’s a school of art,” I said.

“Yeah, from what I could tell. Big windows. A studio.” He shrugged. “Could be a few guard dogs but we’ll take care of them.”

I went back to Wolverine.

“You worried?” he asked.

“No.”

He spent a minute driving, and after a minute he said to me, “What are you thinking?”

I was thinking about acrylics. _Real_ paint. I was thinking about the last time I saw some. It was at the Andersons’ about nine months ago. Jessie was always working on something on the easel, or had something else drying along the skirt-boards or sitting unfinished in the garage. There wasn’t a lot of her paint left after the herd came — I just looked at Oliver and said, “Puddin’.”

Oliver smiled. I think he knew I was pumped for this. I think he knew I was so excited that I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I just watched him over Deadpool. Oliver drove with his prosthetic, reaching his hand across the dashboard to hand me the CD from the stereo. It was Ronny Dee’s _Live at the Continental Club._ He asked me to find something else to play from the CDs under my seat so I picked Aiden’s _MegaMix: Volume 6_.

I put it in the stereo.

The first song was Johnny Cash’s _It’s All Over_ and Oliver skipped it. The next song was Boston’s _More than a Feeling_ and Oliver tutted and skipped that, too. He finally stopped skipping on this one song — told me it was his mom’s favourite, that he couldn’t believe Aiden had it. It was called _Al Di Là_. Most of the song was in English but Oliver sang it under his breath in Italian, and I got real quiet while I listened. I looked out of my window and watched the sun flicker through the trees. I watched the country hills roll under the morning sky. And I felt the gentle hum of the car engine underneath me, and Oliver and the song floating through all of it.

_“Al di là del bene piu prezioso, ci sei tu._   
_Al di là, del sogno piu ambizioso, ci sei tu._   
_Where you walk flowers bloom._   
_When you smile all the gloom turns to sunshine._   
_And my heart opens wide._   
_When you're gone it fades inside and seems to have died._

_Al di là, I wondered as I drifted where you were._   
_Al di là, the fog around me lifted, there you were._   
_In the kiss that I gave was the love I had saved for a lifetime._   
_Then I knew all of you was completely mine...”_

Oliver was pulling up into this long driveway, a stone fence either side. We were in the outskirts of a small, rural town, with yellow and purple flowers scattered all across the track and fences.

Oliver parked in the courtyard.

“Doesn’t look much like a school,” I pointed out, squinting through my wound-down window. There was a lake in the distance behind some trees. I listened for a second and only heard water and birds and crickets. On the left was a building with a glass roof and big windows. Vines growing everywhere. Across the courtyard, which had a small dried up pond in the middle, was another building that looked like a normal house, except it was burned down.

I felt my insides starting to buzz. I could just see through dirty windows into the studio. There were paintings hung up everywhere along walls, and another floor, like an office, with a balcony overlooking the ground floor which was littered with wooden easels and desks and tables and chairs. A big chandelier hung in the far end over an armchair, and the ceiling was lined with big grey pipes.

I stepped out of the car and took my gun, gravel cracking under my boots. Oliver got out, too. We looked at each other, then moved in, and within ten minutes we had the whole place cleared. There wasn’t any food but there was a rifle in the burned house, only all the bullets had been destroyed in the fire. We found this one walker tied to a tree trunk by the lake. She had a pistol beside her, just out of her reach.

“What do you think happened?”

Oliver shrugged and drove his knife through her forehead.

“Maybe she tied herself up,” he said. He picked up the gun. “Couldn’t finish it, though.”

“Like Joe Jr,” I said. “Any bullets?”

“Just one.”

“It’s something,” I said.

Oliver stowed the gun in the back of his jeans while I looted the body. She had a letter:

_‘Any crayon, even the most broken,  
has the potential to make a masterpiece.’_

Oliver read it, too. He squinted at the corpse, then, without saying anything, turned and headed back towards the studio. I followed, letting the letter blow away in the wind.

“What do you wanna do first?” he asked.

“You hungry?” I asked.

“Little,” he said.

“Well, I didn’t bring food.”

He looked at me. “Why’d you ask if I was hungry then?”

I shrug.

“Now I am hungry,” he complained.

I found that funny.

“Come with me,” I said, “I have an idea.”

* * *

 

Half an hour later, I was crouched at the lake edge with Oliver sitting cross-legged beside me, staring into the water.

“So, how long do we have to do this for?”

“A little longer,” I whispered. “Just wait.”

“This place reminds me of this old lake cabin my grandparents owned in South Carolina,” he said after that little longer. “After they died, Dad would take us all up there for a few weeks every summer.”

“You swim?” I asked.

“Nah.”

“You didn’t like the lake?”

“I liked the lake,” he said. “I just didn’t like the minnows.”

I gave him a look.

“What?” Oliver asked. “They’re like water spiders, but fish.”

I laughed.

“You know that’s a thing, right? Water spiders. They exist.”

Oliver sat there and thought about that and then his whole body shivered and he pushed up his glasses.

“Whoa. There!” I said.

“Where?”

“There!”

Oliver leaned over, squinting, then realised his glasses were still on top of his head and pulled them down. “I don’t see anything.”

“They’re there,” I assured him. “Yeah. Being shy, staying under. Little shits know what's up.” I stood up and pulled off my shoes and socks and flannel shirt. I rolled up my jean legs and waded into the water, making a big circle before I was standing ten or so feet from the shore.

“The hell are you doing, man?”

“You stay there,” I called out, so cold I was shivering. I cursed. “Alright, listen, we’re gonna have to do this the old-fashioned way.” I remembered Shane saying the same things and for once I didn’t mind. “You’re the key in all this, okay?”

Oliver nodded, just like I did two years ago.

“I'm gonna go in, all right, scare them, rile them up. They're all gonna scatter. I’ll drive them your way, alright?” Oliver was laughing. I was, too. “What you need to do is you need to round up every bad boy you see, all right, Oliver? Are you ready for this?”

“Yeah!”

“Put on your _mean_ face!”

“The fuck is _that?!_ ”

“Come on, your _mean_ face!” I yelled, and then I growled. “ARRRGGGH!”

Oliver laughed hysterically and growled back... _loud_. “ _GRRRR!_ ”

“That’s it, that’s it! Alright. You ready?”

“YEAH!”

“Here we go!”

I begin splashing my arms, tripping on a roots. Once or twice I go under and the cold bites me everywhere. Oliver laughed like a maniac, swinging his net around under the water — he wasn’t even looking at where it was going. His eyes were on me, and then I threw all sensibility to the wind and dove under the water again. I kicked up as much dirt as I could, splashing and thrashing and yelling until I was out of breath.

“Catch them frogs! Catch them, man!” I cried. “What did you get? What did you get?!”

He rose the net and I waited for the _“dirt...”_ but several tiny green faces wriggled from inside the mesh and a grin exploded across my expression.

“OLIVER, _YES!_ ”

“ _WHOOHOO!_ ”

I waded towards him as fast as I could.

“WHO’S YOUR MAN?!” he said.

My hair whipped around my face. I pointed at him with both my hands and yelled, “YOU ARE!”

“THAT’S FUCKING _RIGHT!_ ” He tipped his head back and howled like a wolf. “ _Owooo!_ ” and then I crashed into him, tackling him at full soggy speed and we both hit the ground with a thump, laughing. “Dude, you’re freezing!”

I kissed him.

He kissed me back.

“You’re a lucky charm,” I said. “You’re the luckiest guy I know.”

He grinned, face speckled in dirt and water, as if my freckles had fallen off on him. I kissed him again, and then I felt something cold and wet land on the back of my leg.

“Oh, shit, the frogs!”

“Get them!”

We scrambled for them. Two got away but the other one that got out was quickly grabbed by Oliver. “Take it!” he yelled, flailing the frog around inside his palm and dropping it in the net. He rushed off and washed his hand in the water.

“We caught six,” I said, struggling my clothes back on. “That’s awesome.”

Oliver kissed me. He pushed his fingers through my soaked hair, then pulled some of it back. He kissed me again.

“Come on,” he said.

* * *

 

We’d managed to get a fire going in a small trash can in the studio, and drank boiled water from the lake and bottles we’d brought with us from home. The frogs cooked easy, and were enough to stop us feeling too hungry. The only problem, we’d attracted some ‘guard dogs’ with all the screaming at the lake, but luckily we’d seen them coming, and hid in the studio locking and drawing curtains over all the windows and doors.

If we were going to get home before sundown, we’d need to leave soon.

“Can’t do much with the walkers outside.”

“What? Yes, we can.”

“Yeah. But do we want to?”

The chill from the lake had lingered all day, but the fire behind the desk kept us comfortable, and after long, I started setting up to paint on one of the easels. Oliver, my model, sat on the armchair opposite, knees up and a blanket over his shoulders. He looked small and daydreamy, listening for any bad noises outside. The worst we’d hear was a sharp bump on the window or something breaking from inside the burned house across. Occasionally, he would call me Jack and say things like, “To the stars,” or, “I want you to paint me like one of your French girls...” — some reference to an old romance movie about a ship or something.

“I believe you are blushing, Mr. Big Artiste.”

It was hard not to find him funny. It was hard not to laugh.

“I’m not,” I insisted.

“I should take my clothes off, _then_ you’ll blush.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“You’ll catch pneumonia,” I said. “Plus, there’s about thirty geeks out there waiting to get their hands on us. What if we have to run?”

He just shrugged. “Worth it.”

“Tool.”

He grinned. “What’s that mean?”

“Dunno,” I said. “But I heard Rosita call Spencer it once.”

Oliver shrugged. “Okay. I’ll keep my clothes on. I’ll do whatever you say, Jack. Just tell me what you want.”

“I want you,” I whispered, eyeing up the blank canvas, measuring out in my head where Oliver would go on it. “I want you exactly the way you are, right now, right there. Everything’s perfect.”

“Talking like the _real_ Mr. Big Artiste.”

“That’s not a real person.”

Oliver snorted, then slipped the corner of his shirt collar over his shoulder. I looked at him. I felt my face blush, then there was a bump at the window and we startled. We waited a second. Finally, I turned to the canvas and got to making Oliver’s skin tone on a pallet, mixing yellow, red and white, and a bit of blue. And then I started to paint, and after a while it felt like I was alone. Just me in my space, hunched and scribbling my imagination into oblivion. Every brush stroke felt like breathing. Every colour made my chest swell. I looked at Oliver in front of me, watching me steadily, and then I looked at him _in front of me,_ paused and pretty but not quite done yet, not quite there...until he _was_. Right there in front of me, finally.

I wanted to spin on the spot and scream. I was so happy. But the walkers were still outside and Oliver was still looking at me and I didn’t want to embarrass myself, so I left the canvas to dry and got to cleaning up.

“Their numbers are dying down out there,” Oliver said, peeking through a gap in the curtain. “Can’t see any from here.”

“Cool,” I said.

“The car’s close,” he said. “We might still make it home before sundown if we go now.”

I looked at him.

He looked at me. “But, I mean... Jack _crap_ if we were planning on getting back tonight in the first place, right?”

I grinned. “One night won’t hurt.”

“You wanna know something?” he asked.

“What?”

“This is the most fun I’ve had in forever.”

Oliver stepped over and put his mouth to my ear and whispered, “Tell it to the frogs.” My hands were in the sink, my back turned to him. The water wasn’t running so I did what I could to clean the brushes with the jar of water I’d poured. And Oliver put his chin on my shoulder and hummed the tune of the song earlier.

“What is it?” I whispered. “What’s _al de là_?”

Oliver sighed into my hair.

He said, “It’s hard to translate. Sometimes there isn’t really the right word for it in English. But, it kinda means... really far. Farther than farther. More than more. _Beyond._ It’s supposed to be how much he’s in love with who he wrote the song for.”

It sounded cliché and dumb and I loved it.

“What?” Oliver said, just looking at me. At my eye. I hadn’t been covering it all day. I knew what he was thinking because I was thinking it to. Three words. Three stupid crazy words — _I love you—_ and he was going to tell me it, too. “Carl, I—”

“I know,” I said, and I held him, and then I kissed him, and then he speared paint across my cheek. “What the...”

“Oh, _dude._ My bad.”

He must’ve put his hand in the paint on accident. It was on his fingers — and my face. He took my hand, painting it blue and red, and I tried to wipe it off. Oliver laughed, and then I brought my hand up and ran my thumb over his bottom lip, colouring it violet. Oliver grimaced and pulled back, but I leaned forward and kissed him and then he found more paint from the mess in the sink behind me and pushed his hand under my shirt with it, wiping magenta across my chest. The cold made me gasp, and in a swell of revenge I grabbed some green and seized his shirt, pushing my hands all the way up over his shoulders. He grabbed me. I knocked his feet out from under him and he grabbed me again, laughing our asses off. An empty easel was knocked over. A desk scraped. Oliver lost his balance and fell to the floor, and I got to thinking about paint again, all the things I could do with it, so I grabbed more from their cartridges, blues and oranges and yellows and pinks, and I splattered them all over him.

“Dude!”

“That’s what you get!”

Oliver grabbed me and pulled me down, kissing and shoving, paint drying under our palms, between our fingers. I went blind. Blinded by colour. My eyes filled with _redorangeyellowgreenblueindigoviolet_ only it was him and all of his _imaginary_ , and Oliver showed me _al di l_ _à_ that night. Farther than the farther. More than more. _Beyond_. And all I could think was that we were both the crayon _and_ the masterpiece after all, like thunder and lightning; never one without the other.

_Day two,_

and I woke up with Oliver curled up in my arms. Around us, the studio looked like the Avengers had broke in and melted into the floorboards. Colour everywhere. It looked like a rainbow tornado had blitzed through the whole building. Even the painting I’d made the night before had a messy burgundy handprint smeared right through the middle. It was kind of awesome. And in any case, I didn’t plan to take it home with me anyway. I did take a few art supplies though; brushes, chalks, paints, and one of those small drawing mannequins.

With the walkers gone, we packed the rest of our things and washed what we could of ourselves in the lake. Mostly just our faces and hands. Our clothes were ruined, but we didn’t mind. We got in our car —I drove this time— and went back home.

Aaron let us in through the gate. Rosita was up on the guard post, shaking her head. They met us as we parked and got out and took in the state of us.

“Back by sundown?” Aaron said.

“My ass,” Rosita took over. She pointed a gloved knuckle at our faces. “You little punks planned this, didn’t you?”

“It was my fault,” Oliver said. “We were gonna come home earlier but some geeks showed up, so we hid overnight.”

Rosita shook her head, vehement.

“Find anything?” Aaron asked.

Oliver presented the pistol and rifle proudly. Rosita pulled a sarcastic smile and took them. She checked the ammo.

“ _One_ bullet? That’s it?”

“Hey, it’s something,” Oliver defended.

Aaron smirked and shook his head, and Rosita pointed a finger at me and said, “If your father finds out you guys spent the night, it’s on you. I’m _not_ taking the blame.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

She gritted her teeth.

“You look like a pair of pride flags,” Aaron said.

We tried not to grin too much.

“Where’s Judy?” Oliver asked.

“Home.”

We headed there with our stuff. Judith was awake in her crib and started yelling as soon as she heard our voices. She clung around Oliver’s neck so tightly that he could let go of her and she wouldn’t fall. Once we washed, Oliver put Judith on his back and piggied her all the way to Roan’s pasture to do chores, and later that evening Tara came by and invited us to supper at the clinic. We had spaghettios. After, Oliver played the parts of _Für Elise_ that Denise had taught him on her piano, which didn’t really sound like _Für Elise_ very much since it was only the left-hand part, but it was nice. After dark, Oliver and I went home. We put Judith to bed and Oliver got this idea to turn out all the lights in the house. He put on Dad’s _Dave Brubeck_ album and skipped to the song _Take Five_ and we laid under the dining room table with a blanket and a flashlight, shoulder-to-shoulder, listening to the music. Oliver made up his own lyrics to go with the tune. _“I love you more than air. Your skin, so soft so fair.”_ I had to cover his mouth when he sang stuff like: _“The stars are in your eyes, let me lie between your thighs.”_ And even worse: _“I can’t ever use my Glock again, but at least I have your—”_ Yeah. Bad lyrics like _that._ To distract him, I shone the flashlight at the underside of the table. The light looked like the shapes in an iris. We looked and looked and looked, and then we drifted away and became imaginary again.

_Day three,_

and not much happened. Oliver and I woke up, messed around the house for a while, we looked after Judith, did chores, hung out, messed around even more. Oliver fell asleep for a while so I took Judy for a walk in her pram to get her to nap again. Rosita was leaving to look for more guns — said all she’d found so far was a BB gun that she almost died for.

For a while, Judith and I sat by the lake. I taught her to throw rocks in. She wasn’t very good. A few times I had to catch the rocks before they flew back and hit us.

Judith stopped and stared at something across the lake.

I looked. “Whoa...”

It was a—

“Hey, Carl?”

I jumped and saw Eric walking by. “Hey,” I said. I looked back at what I’d seen, but it was gone. “Er — How’s it going?”

Eric shrugged. “Aaron’s making meatloaf and potato salad for supper. Jell-O, too. Wanna join?”

I had this hunch that the grown-ups were taking turns to look after us, since Oliver and I were living alone until Dad and Michonne got back. They were due back some time today. But it was late and I was trying not to get worried about them, so I just nodded and said, “Uh, yeah. Thanks. I’ll go get Oliver.”

“Okay, better come quick. We eat dessert first.”

“Why?”

“Why not?” Eric said. “Never know what your last meal’s gonna be, might as well make sure you get the best bits first.”

I thought that was strange and genius.

Eric walked away. I hurried back home with Judith. We found Oliver in the same place I’d left him; naked with a leg out of his sleeping bag. I put Judith on the rug and knelt by his side and sang:

_“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine._   
_You make me happy when skies are grey._   
_You’ll never know, dear, how much I—”_

“I’m glad he didn’t ruin it for you,” Oliver mumbled. “The song.”

“Yeah.”

Oliver sat up and yawned. “Sup?”

“Gotta get dressed,” I answered. “We’re headed to Aaron and Eric’s for supper.”

“Your parents aren’t home?” he asked.

I looked at him. People were calling them that now and it didn’t bother me nearly as much as I kept reminding myself it should. In fact, it didn’t bother me at all. I got this feeling like my mom would be happy about that, proud that I wasn’t letting the world spoil me, that I was doing what I had to do but I was still her sweet, sweet boy, maybe.

I kissed Oliver’s forehead.

“Not yet,” I answered. “Come on, before all the Jell-O’s gone.”

_Day four,_

and we spent most of our time doing chores. Around lunch, while Oliver was demonstrating a few tricks on his skateboard near the lake as I dug into my tinned maceral, something caught my eye.

I stood up immediately.

It was the deer; what I’d seen yesterday. She was young and timid, peeking past Roan’s paddock at us. I felt my face smile. When Oliver noticed I was staring, he looked too and was so shocked he fell from his board. Startled, the doe froze and stared at us. Oliver and I stared back. Slowly, I stepped closer to him to help him up. He took my hand. His was bleeding.

“We should shoot her,” Oliver said.

I didn’t say anything.

“We... shouldn’t shoot her,” Oliver said.

“I saw her yesterday.”

“Yeah?” he whispered.

“Yeah.”

“How’d she get in?”

I shrugged. Someone shut a door in the distance and the doe bolted. We watched her go. Then Oliver grabbed my hand and we ran after her to the front gates. Gabriel was there, opening them. It all happened at the same time: The eagle truck returned home and the doe leaped over the hood and galloped away from Alexandria.

Michonne hit the brakes hard.

She and Dad looked at each other from inside, like they couldn’t believe what they’d just seen, and then Michonne shook her confusion off and parked the truck outside the armoury. We greeted them. Nobody really talked about the deer. The truck was full of guns and food, which was good, but it didn’t quite feel that way. Oliver and I didn’t speak. We just looked at each other. He tried to smile but I didn’t believe it. We both knew that the last four days we’d fallen in love with were just another memory now.

The deer was a sign.  
The deer was a reminder.  
Like it always was:  
Something good was over.

And it was time for Oliver to leave again.

“Tomorrow morning,” Dad said.

“Yes, sir.”

They brought back sixty-three guns in total. Most were machine guns, big ones. Army. All Dad had to do now was delivery them and seal the ally deal in the evening with the Heapsters — nicknamed because they lived in a junkyard.

In preparation for the delivery, I’d been helping Tara all afternoon in making a gun inventory out by the truck. Oliver was looking after Roan. Dad and Michonne were home with Judith. Scab was sitting on the armoury windowsill, watching Tara and I. Scab’s belly was so big she looked ready to go into labour any second. She’d been sleeping in Oliver’s old room, curled up in a nest she’d made in the dresser. I guess she chose that room because it smelled similar to where Oliver had found her in the first place; it was a nice thought — that a pregnant mongrel with a crooked tail and two missing claws could be sentimental.

Tara handed me a gun and I got to cleaning it.

“It’s good they found these,” I said to her. “Now you don’t have to tell them about Oceanside.”

Tara looked at me, eyes wide.

“Yeah,” I said, cocking an eyebrow, “I know about that.”

Oceanside: where Tara was for all that time.  
Oceanside: a hidden community of women and children only.  
Oceanside: whose fathers and sons and brothers were all murdered by the Saviours.  
Oceanside: who also happened to have enough guns for an entire army, and _then_ some.

She stuttered. “H— How?”

“Overheard you talking to Judy this morning.” I shrugged. “You know she’s only two, right? She isn’t a qualified therapist yet — _ow!_ ” Tara’d punched me in the shoulder. “Alright, alright! _I’m kidding._ Sheesh!”

“Carl, you _can’t_ tell anybody.”

“I haven’t,” I said, whispering. “I _won’t_. Promise.”

Tara just nodded and leaned against the eagle truck door, rubbing her eyes. She was all tense and stiff — that happens when you hide a whole community from your own family; I’d seen it in Oliver.

“But I think _you_ should,” I told her.

Tara sighed at her feet. “I know. I know.” She touched the tattoo on her wrist. It was of tiny Roman numerals, like a list. I’d never asked what they meant, and I guess I didn’t plan to — I figured tattoos were like bruises, or scars; you didn’t need to ask people why, just as long as _they_ knew why.

“Where’d your bracelet go?” I asked.

“Oh. Gave it to Judith,” Tara said, and put the last machine gun inside the back of the eagle truck, and then Gabriel and Rosita left the armoury. Dad and Michonne arrived shortly after.

“Good luck,” I told them all.

“Thanks.”

Scab followed me as I walked home. Oliver was waiting on the porch, dirt on his cheek. Scab, so heavily pregnant, lumbered up the steps and sat with him and rubbed her head against his hip. I figured she was only being so nice because she hadn’t seen him for four days, and maternal hormones kicking in I guess.

Oliver petted her.

I stood there, looking up at him.

The evening sun was shining in his face, turning him gold and pink.

“They gone?” he asked me.

I nodded.

"Carl?” he said

“Yeah,” I said back.

“I’m gonna ask your dad if I can stay at Hilltop.”

I thought about that for a second, and then I nodded and said, “Okay...” and we were quiet for a while, just looking at each other and listening to the air and the birds and the crickets and Scab’s purring. I could hear the faint growl of a walker on the other side of the wall; ignored it.

Finally, I tilted my head. “You coming?”

Oliver got up, leaving Scab sitting on the edge, and a half-hour later, the sun had set and the bathroom was lit in the soft glow of a candle I’d put on the sink. The bathtub was full, and inside it, Oliver was rested along my front, hugged in all of me. We were tired, all calm and quiet and warm. I stroked his hair he had his cheek on my chest, eyes shut, breath steady. Every few moments, under the water, he’d touch my spine with his fingertips, as if he was reassuring me that he was still there, or maybe he was reassuring himself.

He kissed my chest and pulled the hair there with his lips. I laugh-grunted and jerked away, and he said, “You need to shave.”

“You do, too.”

We decided to shave each other, taking it in turns. Me first. I sat completely still while Oliver lathered my face in cream and used my father’s blade to shave me. He was careful and gentle and precise. I imagined myself like a blank canvas, and Oliver was the artist, like the other day but swapped. We didn’t speak. And when it was his turn I tried to be as careful and gentle and precise as he was. I guessed I did it right because he kept his eye closed the whole time.

In the candle light, Oliver was so crazily beautiful, even his scars, and this bad lump in my throat wouldn’t go away. When I was finished, I set the blade on the shelf with the cream. Oliver didn’t open his eyes. He just dunked his face under the water and rinsed. I was crying, and I knew he could hear me, but he still didn’t look at me and I was glad.

He sat up in front of me and kept his hand and arm over his face, pressed there while the water trickled through his fingers and scars.

“Don’t cry.”

“Okay.”

“Please, don’t cry.”

“Okay. Okay.”

I saw his face fold up under his hand, and then he started crying really hard, and he sank his whole head under the water. I put my hand on his shoulder and rubbed circles into his back. I stopped crying and wished I could stop time too, just stay in that moment forever, but I couldn’t do that, so instead I pulled him up before he ran out of air. Oliver looked right at me, water running down his face. I hugged him. Water splashed but we didn’t care. We hugged and hugged until we matched each other’s breaths and heartbeats, and finally, somehow, all the crying went away again.

* * *

 

Later, the others had come back with twenty guns, which wasn’t the plan. They explained that Jadis, the Heapsters’ leader, wanted more, that sixty-three wasn’t enough, that they needed double that. Tara very carefully didn’t look at me when this was all explained.

Still, it wasn’t time to think about that.

“Supper’s ready.”

Oliver and I had made pizza. _Real_ pizza, from some dough mix from Hilltop and chilli sauce and dried toppings from the packet stuff Dad and Michonne brought back. _Weird_ pizza, yeah, but _real_ weird pizza. After the feast, Tara, Gabriel, Aaron, Eric and Rosita all went home, Judith was sleeping upstairs, and it was just me, Oliver, Dad and Michonne around the table, snacking on leftovers. Yeah, they’d brought _that_ much back with them. They even let Oliver and I have a beer each. Or maybe two or three... or six:—“You’re men,” Dad said. “You should be able to drink with your elders.”

Oliver didn’t bring up Hilltop. I guess because everybody was laughing and joking, and I guess he didn’t want to change anything. Judith kept whispering to Patty Catty through the baby-monitor. Michonne was getting drunk and telling the story _again_ of how she and Daryl met Oliver; the conversation with himself, the M&M’s, the awkward silence and the politeness. _Beware of escaping Hitchhikers._ And Dad didn’t stop laughing, with his hand on Oliver’s shoulder and his cheeks all bunched up and full of pizza crust and beer.

But, after a while, I think Oliver knew that we were saying goodbye. I saw it in his face. As Dad took his hand off his shoulder to drink, giggling under his breath, Oliver prodded at a half-eaten crust and said, “Rick?”

He turned to him. “Hm.”

“Tomorrow,” Oliver said, “can I go to hilltop?”

Dad stopped smiling slowly, his eyes all wrinkled up.

“Kingdom and Hilltop are allies,” Oliver said, as if he’d rehearsed it in his head for days, “and the Saviors know that already. It’s not as far to ride on my own and if I’m at Hilltop instead, I can help in the fight. I can and I will and I want to.”

Dad looked at Michonne and they talked together inside their heads.

“Simon and his crew do pick-ups there, they could recognise you,” Michonne said.

“Simon was there the night of the line up,” Oliver answered. “He could recognise Maggie and Sasha, too. But they haven’t been caught.”

Dad sighed — he wasn’t saying no.

“What about Roan?” Michonne asked. “They’ll recognise him. One ear and all.”

“There’s a tiger scratched in on the saddle, too,” I said, just remembering it.

Oliver sighed, like he’d thought of this.

“I’ll let him loose,” he said. “He’s done his bit for me. He hates being cooped up anyway.”

“Gregory’s not gonna like it,” Michonne said after a pause. “You being there.”

“Maggie will,” Oliver said, “Sasha. Jesus. Enid.”

Dad still wasn’t saying no.

“Say yes,” Oliver said. “Rick, say yes, please?”

He watched him, and then he pulled Oliver’s head forward and kissed the top of it firmly and gently in his _way_. And then he said it. He said yes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That Al De La song was by Jerry Vale, I think.
> 
> Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe inspired this entire chapter.
> 
> P.S. I'm on Instagram gaellikestoswim and Tumblr notmuchmoretosay.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	128. Season 7 ~ Say Yes, Part 2: I Did Not Cry

It’d gone midnight by the time Carl and I snuck out through the living room window and walked to the gazebo. It was cold out, so we had a blanket. Our teeth were chattering.

“Got everything?” Carl asked me.

I held up the packet of papers and the small tin Benjamin gave me. Carl grinned. He reached into his pocket and took out Daryl’s lighter.

“You sure about this?” I asked. “You tripped pretty hard first time.”

“You’ll take care of me.”

I smiled.

“Alright...” I laid everything out. “You gotta roll it.”

“Roll what?”

“The joint.”

“You haven’t even made it yet.”

I looked at him. And then I laughed. “ _Roll —_ like, _roll._ ”

Carl frowned, then caught on. “Oh!”

I was still laughing.

“Why can’t you do it?” he asked.

“An insufficient amount of limbs,” I answered — I’d left my hook in his room.

“But I don’t know how.”

“I’ll talk you through it,” I said, “help you out where I can.”

Carl sighed apprehensively, then opened the tin. The smell was fresh and strong and reminded me of the Kingdom.

“There’s enough in here for a few,” I observed. “Do you want one each, or should we just make one and share it?”

Carl shrugged.

“One, for now,” I decided.

I took a paper, then gave him another and told him to fold it up real small for a filter. Carl didn’t know what a filter was until I explained. He made one. I held it in place on the paper and was careful the breeze couldn’t blow it away. I showed him how to set up the tobacco, then how to grind the herb. I only knew what I did from watching Jerry and Benjamin, so it took several tries for us to get everything set up. Rolling was hard; we almost gave up, but Carl finally managed to pick up this trick with his thumb and pinkie, and we had a joint. It was a little spacey and crinkled, but it was good enough. Carl even decided to make another one, packing it a little more.

“You go first,” he said, handing over the first joint he’d made, nervous, so I kissed his cheek and I smoked twice before handing over. Carl smoked slowly. He coughed a lot this time. I figured it was because of the tobacco, and I guessed because it was just me and him, and because he was in a place he knew and trusted, he was calmer than last time, and after a few minutes the paleness in his face went away and he didn’t get so self-conscious. He just smoked and smoked and then he laughed and I did, too.

At some point we’d laid back along the bench, squashed and staring up at the stars that we could see past the gazebo roof. I remember thinking we were part of them, the stars. I remember taking off my shoes and socks and looking at my toes and thinking I was shining. I remember laughing so hard into Carl’s chest that I thought we’d both floated up into the night-sky and turned into comets together. We were going to soar right across the universe.

Carl had been quiet for a long time, and when I’d remember where we were, I’d reach over and patted his chest to make sure he hadn’t wondered off into the nebula without me. And then I’d just keep my hand there for a while. On his chest. Feeling him breathe and blink and smiled and _exist_.

“Why’re you smilin’ at me like that?” he said.

I got insecure and shook my head, mumbling something, and then at some point a million lightyears later, we started talking about names. He told me his favourite name was Judith. I said my favourite was Patrick — biased.

A weird noise came out of him.

“What?” I asked, poking his hand. In my head, I asked it if I could borrow it, and then out loud, I said, “I only have one.”

“Me too,” Carl said.

I looked at him.

“Eye,” Carl said.

“Beautiful,” I said.

“You’re beautiful,” he retorted.

I laughed. And laughed. And laughed.

“We can loan each other,” I said. “An eye for a hand.”

Carl grinned. A while passed. Or it felt a while. Counting seconds was like counting stars. Too many to count or none at all, hidden in either light or cloud — I couldn’t tell which.

“Imagine... Imagine you answering to Patrick,” Carl said.

I bust out laughing into my hand.

“You wear his glasses,” he said, “it’s like you’re turning into him. Turning into Patrick. _Patrizio Abel De Luca._ ” He’d said it with an Italian accent and I remember looking at him like he was the most incredible thing in all infinite dimensions and he was.

“ _Bravissimo!_ ” I laughed.

“ _Grazi uomo,_ ” he said back. I laughed again. I’d been speaking Italian a lot around him lately. He’d been picking up whole sentences just from listening. Carl hugged my arm and laughed too. He said, “Ohhoo...” but that wasn’t Italian so I laughed even harder, and then he just smiled at me for a while, until finally, he told me, “I’m not losing you, but I can still lose _you_.” And saying that made him frown. He looked at the roof of the gazebo and whispered, “I can’t lose you.”

I kissed him. And then I stopped.

Carl just smiled real big at me.

“I’m Oliver,” I told him.

“You are,” he said. “ _Oliver Fabiano De Luca._ ” Again, with the accent.

“Fabiano’s what my mom wanted to call me,” I giggled. I think I might have repeated myself a few times because Carl said it, too. He said, “Yeah, yeah, what your mom wanted to call you,” so I eventually said, “But she chose Pat’s first name, even though he used the English translation. Dad... Dad wanted one of us to have his first name.”

We went quiet.

Carl was frowning like he was thinking about something, and then he looked at me suddenly and said, “Wait, your dad’s name was... Your name — You... You’re Oliver, Jr.”

I scoffed.

Carl said it several more times, like it was the epiphany of the century: _Oliver, Jr. Oliver, Jr. Oliver, Jr._ “You never told me that.”

I shrugged and grinned.

“You never told anybody, did you?”

Another shrug.

Carl gave me this look, like: _maybe you should quit doing that_. But all he said was, “Daddy issues.”

I laughed and jostled him and he had to grab my shoulder and jut out his leg as not to fall off the edge of the world. Carl laughed hard, and then settled and grinned at me.

“Fine,” he said. “You’re Oliver. Just Oliver.”

“I am.” I looked at the sky and cried, “ _I am, I am, I am, I am!_ ” and we both cracked up laughing again, doubled over, laughed so hard we ran out of our breath. And then we were quiet for what felt like a life time. I hated _my_ quiet, but when it was _our_ quiet, I loved it. I loved our quiet so much. I felt so at home inside of it, like I never needed to be anywhere else and for a while I wasn’t.

“I told Negan,” Carl said somewhere in the middle of that, confessing it. “I wouldn’t look at his wives. He figured I had someone to come back to, asked me for a name. I said yours. I said you were gone.”

“Oh.”

Carl sighed. “Yeah.”

We were quiet again. The floatiness in our heads made it hard to worry.

“He seemed kinda impressed,” Carl said. “Called me mo, like a compliment.”

“Mo?”

“Homo.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh,” I said again. And Carl was still laughing. He hadn’t stopped. I thought it was because I kept saying ‘oh’ and then I was laughing too. I struggled, then stood up on the bench seat. It was cold and rough under my feet. I straightened my back and stretched my arms up to hold onto the roof of the gazebo with my left hand as not to fall, and then I looked at the moon and howled, “ _Owooo!_ ”

Carl just looked up at me like I was crazy. I was. I remember thinking I could fly. I got this idea that if I jumped off the seat I’d soar up over the wall like Peter Pan — _find the second star to the right and fly straight on ‘til morning..._ only the laughing distracted me from it. Mine and Carl’s. Carl was laughing so hard he’d collapsed off the bench and was knelt on the ground when I looked, but eventually he got up again.

Carl stood beside me, facing the other way so that as he held onto the roof his back arched and his head rolled back. I was giggling; he looked like one of those live-art models.

“Wait,” I asked, “ _wives?_ ”

“Six,” Carl said.

“Like, _wives?_ ”

“Wives, wives, wives. Wives. Wives, wives,” he said. “Six.”

“Who he kisses? Who Negan kisses — who he... kisses?”

Carl had this funny look on his face where his eyebrows were hiding under his hair, like he was remembering something. He didn’t share it. He just nodded a lot.

“At the same time?” I added.

Carl looked at me, like this hadn’t occurred to him. “Guess.”

I didn’t ask any more questions. I just thought about that for a while. I think Carl did, too. And then I decided to think about something else. I thought about sleeping. And Roan. And how Roan slept standing up because he was a horse and that was just how they slept most of the time. He’d rest one leg and lock the remaining three so that he didn’t fall over. I thought it was clever. He could run away fast if he ever needed to. Only then I got to thinking about that one horse from last year, Buttons, and how he tried to run away but died anyway. And then I got to thinking that maybe sleeping standing up wasn’t so great after all, that maybe sleeping laid down was better, or at the very least that I preferred it. And then this strange, secret thing happened in my head. I decided I was done running. I decided I was done going places just because I didn’t like myself. But I didn’t say any of this. I just nodded like someone had been talking to me, and I said, “I am Oliver.”

Carl told me to let go of the roof and hold onto him, so I did. I thought we would fall but he kept us steady. He took my hand and used it to draw from the North Star all the way along the Little Dipper.

“I was named after my uncle,” he said, “my middle name, I mean.”

I squinted up at the sky, wondering how it and Carl’s middle name were relevant to each other, and then I realised that they weren’t and that he was just making conversation.

“You never told me _that_ ,” I mocked.

Carl scoffed.

“Uncle issues,” I said.

We both bust out laughing. Laughing so hard the whole galaxy filled with it, our laughter, and in the end, I pulled his fingers away from the gazebo roof because I wanted to hold onto them, but I forgot that he needed both hands to hold us up, so he started to fall, and I started to fall too, and then we collapsed in a heap and we laughed forever and laid there in the grass and dust, grinning at the night-sky.

I let out a high-pitched, “ _Whooo!_ ”

Carl looked at me. Then he didn’t. And he asked me if I’d ever been with somebody while I was high and I said I hadn’t, but that:—“I’ve gotten high _afterwards._ ”

He grumbled something, and then he sat up and pulled off his coat. He looked at me as he unbuckled his belt and slid out of his jeans and said, “Take off your clothes,” so I did, bar my socks, and after a minute we were both naked and shivering and sitting on our shirts as not to catch frostbite. It was so cold. The cold felt like cuts. He unwrapped his bandage and pulled it away from his face. All of it. I pulled off my bandage, too.

I kissed it, his scar. I don’t know why I liked to kiss it, I just did.

He grinned and whispered, “Mo.”

“So mo.”

My brain was floating all over the place. He pressed our foreheads and I felt his too, his brain, floating up and tangling into my hair. I breathed through his thoughts and looked into his eye and felt his arms around me, and I didn’t remember a lot else of that night, just that we found a lot of things really funny. I remember that. And we kissed. Kissed and kissed and kissed. And before long every name in the whole world was forgotten again.

-oxoxo-

The next morning, we woke up at home inside each other’s arms, showered, then we found breakfast in the kitchen; left-overs, which wasn’t much because we’d both had most of it in the night to fill our munchies.

Scab had given birth at some point. We found her curled up with eight tiny kittens attached to her belly, all blind and deaf and suckling. There was a ninth kitten, dead, laying cold and blue and neglected outside of the nest. Scab must have pushed it out.

Sometimes nature was cruel. It just was. The dead came back to life and kittens died. Still, turns out Carl and I were the kind of boys who buried kittens together. We buried that one by the wall and marked its grave with a small rock and a pile of daisies — we were kind of sad for a little while, and then we thought about other things.

I did my chores. I saddled up. Carl and I waited by the gate until Rick, Michonne, Tara and Aaron showed up to see me go. As they were coming, Carl slipped Daryl’s lighter into my pocket, along with something else too. It was a letter, or envelope; something paper by the sounds it made.

“Don’t open it until you’re there,” he whispered into my ear.

I nodded.

“See you,” he said.

“See you,” I said back.

It wasn’t a big send off. Goodbye’s sucked enough. Gabriel was busy giving service and Rosita was out. I didn’t mind. I’d seen them as they left earlier in the morning. Tara hugged me for minutes and minutes and minutes. Her seashell bracelet was in Judith’s hands, which Judith showed me herself when I held her to my chest. She told me, “Bean?” and I said, “I’ll find him.”

And I didn’t cry. Not while Aaron wrapped an arm around me and Eric patted my shoulder. Not while Rick hugged me and kissed the top of my head. Not while Michonne held me around my head and made me feel like I was floating. Not even while Carl kissed me, and for the first time in almost a year, told me that he loved me, with those exact words...

“I love you.”

...and I did not cry. But I did when I was outside, when the gate was closed and Roan and I were riding away. I cried so hard that after a few blocks, I had to slow him down to a walk so that I wouldn’t fall. I curled up to his withers and cried. I wrapped my arms around his neck and cried. I gripped onto his mane and cried. And Roan let me cry. And cry. And cry. As hard as my body could bear it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last spring I used an edited fversion of the smoking scene for a piece in my Prose class, then I posted it on FictionPress, and now it's published in a magazine, Lit to Print. The story's called 'Into the Nebula' and it's in Lit to Print's first volume.
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	129. Season 7 ~ The Other Side, Part 1: Refuge

**~Oliver~**

* * *

After letting Roan loose and dumping his tack in a creek, I arrived at Hilltop on foot in the evening. It must’ve been getting late; the guard on duty’d fallen asleep. He was slim and his skin was pale brown, with a shaven face and short dark hair that stuck up like hedgehog spikes. I sort of just waited for a few minutes awkwardly while he snored away against the shaft of his spear. I couldn’t yell. So, eventually, I just picked up a clump of hard dirt and flung it up at him.

It hit him square in the chest.

He grunted and collapsed. I didn’t see him when he said, “ _Whattheshit?_ ” but I saw him when he got up. He looked around, saw me, then scrambled for his spear and aimed it at me. “Stay back!”

“It’s alright,” I said, arms up. “I am no foe. Neither am I the dead.” After all that time I’d gotten used to Kingdom soldier idiolect, even without a horse under me—I knocked it off and cleared my throat. “I’m, uh, a friend, of Maggie’s. My name’s Oliver.”

He didn’t say anything.

I didn’t either.

Then he was done not saying things and told me, “You were here a few days ago.” I nodded. “What do you want, kid?”

“Refuge... sir.”

“Well we’re not taking anybody in. You’ll have to find somewhere else. Leave, now, before — M—Miss. Rhee?” He was looking behind him, and then he was helping Maggie up onto the watch deck. I smiled—I smiled so widely my face ached. She leant over the wall and squinted at me, and then she smiled too.

“It’s okay, Kal,” she said. “Open the gate.”

* * *

I explained everything to Maggie and Jesus and Sasha, and Daryl—who’d managed to stay at the Kingdom for a total of one night before he marched right out of the gate and came to Hilltop. His reasons for this weren’t disclosed, but I had my hunches. No time to clarify though. My news of a larger group possibly helping in the fight against the Saviors was turning everybody hopeful and chatty.

I wasn’t really up to much chatting though. So, after a while, the others went back to the trailer and Maggie took me to see Glenn and Abraham’s graves.

We sat for a while. I’d not gotten to see them. I’d not gotten to say goodbye. Not for the whole five weeks since they’d been murdered. Not until then. I didn’t cry. I just... _sat_. There were deflated green balloons on Abraham’s grave, smooth rocks and green flowers on both.

And Maggie just held my hand.

She was starting to show this tiny bit. Her baby-bump was small, but just visible under her vest. She looked beautiful. Really. More beautiful than she already was. People said pregnant women glowed, and it was true. Not _glow_ like in movies but glow like from the inside, like you could only see it if you just shut your eyes and sat and held her hand, and then you could just _feel_ the glowing from inside her, spreading through you like air. And she had this soft smile on the corner of her mouth that made me think of my mother. I wondered if all pregnant people had that smile.

“Gregory’s all talk,” she told me after a while. “He won’t want you here when he finds out, but you can stay as long as you like.”

I don’t know why, but I wanted to cry. Maybe that was a pregnancy thing, too, that you cried in front of pregnant people. Or maybe I was just sad.

When the tears started to fall, I wiped them away and tried to pretend they weren’t there, but I thought about Glenn and I thought about Abraham and I thought about Noah and more and more names and I missed them all so much and I knew Maggie did too, worse, and I couldn’t stand that. I couldn’t stand that sad.

Maggie was looking at me.

I put my chin on my kneecap and pointed at my ankles feebly.

“I cuff my jeans,” I sniffed stupidly. “Like he did.” And then Maggie held me. I didn’t let her see me cry, and she didn’t let me see her cry either, but we both knew it was there, that hurt. We could feel it.

And  
there  
was  
_so_  
much.

Maggie took me to a small trailer. It had blue flowers outside, and inside it smelled of apples and pastry and chalk, and also musk, like too many people lived in it, and they did. There was Daryl, Sasha, Enid, Bean, Jesus and Maggie, and now me, too.

While the others slept, bar Daryl, who was outside, sitting quietly tending to a new crossbow, Maggie showed me to where I was going to sleep, which was on the floor beside Enid who was on a make-shift couch-bed; Maggie said she’d had a busy day at target practice so I figured I’d not wake her—even Bean was quiet while he greeted me.

I set my stuff down, said goodnight to Maggie, who was curling up in bed across the room, and dressed into the pyjamas she gave me. They were Jesus’ and they fit almost perfectly.

Maggie was asleep by the time I remembered the letter Carl wrote me, and since I was at Hilltop, by instruction, I reached for my jacket pocket and took out the letter. It was a folded piece of paper and I held it up to the moonlight coming in through the window. I had to use my glasses to read the note on the back:

_OLIVER_

_THE FOLLOWING SKETCH IS INSPIRED BY  
PAUL-_ _É_ _LIE RANSON_ _’_ _S, THE BLUE ROOM_

 _P.S. THIS TOOK A LOT MORE TIME IN FRONT OF THE MIRROR THAN I WILL EVER BE COMFORTABLE WITH.  
_ _YOU OWE ME MAN._

_YOURS SEMPITERNALLY  
CARL._

I unfolded the paper and immediately had to hold back something like a gasp-grunt-laugh. Bean, who I was using as a pillow, lifted his head and sniffed at me. I petted him and he settled again.

I looked back at the sketch.

Carl Grimes had drawn himself. No, really... he’d drawn _himself,_ for _me._

“Whoa...”

I was ecstatic. I’d never gotten a ‘nude’ before but from what I knew, this was the closest I was ever going to get. It made me laugh so much I had to stifle it into my wrist. I looked at the drawing for a while longer, and probably a little while longer than that. It was crazy accurate. Crazy good. And yes, okay, fine, crazy sexy too— _completely_. All along the bottom was a note in really tiny writing...

 _C. J. GRIMES_ _#_ _SELF PORTRAIT: THE SOLDIER WITHOUT HIS ARMOUR, 2013_ _#_ _PENSIL ON PAPER_ _#_ _PRIVATE COLLECTION OF OLIVER DE LUCA_ _’_ _S POCKET, VA_

I was aware of the sleeping people in the room with me, so I folded up the drawing and carefully hid it inside my jeans pocket for another time.

* * *

_As I slept, I dreamed I was living inside Carl’s drawing, sitting nude with him by the lake at home. The world was in black and white, sketched, and Carl said he wanted the clouds to go away so that the sun could shine, so together we rubbed out the overcast. We laughed and danced and kissed and felt the heat rays on our skin...but then the world got cold again. The pencil lines around us became dark, like they’d been drawn over too hard. They’d dent the paper. And then a big dark figure showed up, like a hard and furious scribble. No face. No body. Just darkness and a single voice. Negan’s voice. It started singing Eenie Meenie Miney Mo, and it cheered, “Turn that sleepy little burg upside down!” and behind it drug a barbed baseball bat. It left tears in the paper, and we ran, but there was nowhere to hide. Anywhere we tried was erased. Corners were blocked off. Trees were drawn too tall to climb. Doors were smudged away. Then Carl tripped, and fell through a tear in the paper. I grabbed his hand before he could plummet into the nothing. He looked so afraid, the same way he looked the moment before he lost his eye and memory. And then the figure was there. It loomed over us, pointed its bat, and sang... “You. Are. It.”_

_It swung,_  
_tore,_  
_through the paper floor,_  
_and Carl and I?_

_We died._

They say that if you die in a dream you die in real life too and I thought that was true for a second when I woke up because I was sweating and drenched and I couldn’t move or think so I laid there on the floor until the sleep paralysis wore off again, and I realised it was morning... and that I was alive.

_Just a bad dream._

_Just a bad dream._

I wished Carl was there to hold me. God, it was sappy and embarrassing but it was true. I think I hated that, too, a little. How much I needed him. How much better things were when he was just _around._ I think the idea of that, of being in love with him, was heavy on me, still. But I knew things were okay and thinking about that made me feel better.

Jesus’ trailer was small and well lit. He had a big red sunhat hung on a hook and cool artsy posters up on the walls. He was into Martial Arts, and kept a lot of books about “nothing and everything” and some of them rattled if you turned them over.

Enid was asleep. Maggie was by the stove, boiling water for something. Sasha and Daryl were out somewhere, and Jesus, I’d heard the night before, was mentoring some run group before they’d head out that morning.

I held my chest and tried to calm my breathing.

Maggie saw me, and smiled; in the way mom’s smile when they’re worried about you. I didn’t want the worry so I got up and left the trailer. Daryl was outside. He had a cigarette between his lips but his lighter wouldn’t light. I reached into my pocket.

“Spare,” I said. “Carl found it.”

Daryl grunted in thanks and took his lighter from me. He lit his cigarette. I watched him smoke. It must have been obvious that I wanted one because Daryl looked at me, then looked at his pack.

“Y’smoke now?”

“No,” I answered. “Yes... but not like you do.”

Daryl snorted. “Y’ain’t havin’ mine.”

I frowned.

“They ain’t yours, not this time,” he said.

“You’d tell?”

“Damn straight,” he said, quiet. He was sad. I was too.

“Fine.”

We were very quiet for a while. Daryl smoked his cigarette, then when it was done he flicked it off his finger into the muddy puddle under the hose faucet. He smoked another. Then another. I don’t really know why I stayed there. I don’t really know why I felt so mad. I thought maybe it was because he wasn’t sharing, but I think it was because Daryl was mad himself. Not at me. I didn’t know at what. All I knew was that just like I was making the house sad before, Daryl was making the trailer mad.

Then, in his own time a million cigarettes later, Daryl spoke.

“You knew she was there: Carol, at Kingdom.”

I looked at him. I nodded.

Daryl grimaced.

“So what,” he said, “you hate her now or somethin’?”

“Something.”

Daryl was quiet. He chewed his thumb.

“She thinks you do,” he said. “Somewhere in ya.”

“That what she told you?”

“M-hm.”

I didn’t say anything. It was none of his business how I felt about Carol. It was none of mine, not anymore.

“She’s still family,” he said.

“That why you lied to her?”

Daryl looked at me.

“If you did tell her, about Glenn and Abe and everybody else, she’d be here.”

Daryl really looked mad then. I think I must have too. I felt my cheeks heat up, the stupid wet in my eyes. I thought about the last time we did this together, sat on some steps smoking and not smoking and talking about Carol and family. So much had happened since then, but _nothing_ had changed.

Daryl got up and walked away. He passed Jesus, almost walked right into him, but Jesus was able to dodge and Daryl didn’t even look at him. Jesus watched him go, that _way_ he watched things when he wanted to understand them, and then he looked at me like he understood me perfectly, like he didn’t need to watch me because he just _knew_.

“What was that about?” he asked me.

“Nothing.”

I got up and went inside. Maggie left as I did. She handed me a mug. It was hot and filled with coffee.

“Better than smoking.”

I wanted to thank her, I did. But I just blushed and took the mug from her. While I laid in my make-shift bed with Bean, all bitter and upset while I stared at the rain-stained ceiling and sipped on my coffee, I listened to her and Jesus talk outside.

“Sorry for taking over your trailer,” Maggie said.

“Oh, I grew up with a lot of people around. I’m used to it.”

“Big family?”

“Uh... Group home,” Jesus said. “This isn’t like that though—bad parts at least. For the first time, I feel like I belong. Tryin’a make you and Sasha become a part of this, made _me_ a part of this. I was first here, but I was never _here_. I uh, always found it hard getting close to anyone. Neighbours, friends. Boyfriends.”

They were quiet for a moment.

“You should try it sometime,” Maggie said. “Even if it doesn’t last.” It sounded like she got up. “I’m gonna talk to our blacksmith, ‘bout making more spears. Maybe we can trade with the Kingdom for some body armour. Thing is what we really need is riot gear—”

The next thing I knew, something hit me in the face and I was yelling and someone else was screaming and stumbling to the floor beside me. My coffee spilled. I picked it up, grimacing through a headache while I sat up.

“Enid!”

“Oliver?!”

“Why did you stand on me?!”

“What the hell? What the hell? _What the hell?!_ ”

“Hey, hey, jeez, calm down.” I groaned and held my face. The trailer door opened and sunlight poured in. I groaned again. “God, Enid, you stood right on my nose.”

“Morning, guys,” Jesus said.

“You okay?” Maggie asked.

“What the hell happened?” Sasha too.

Enid was hyperventilating and I was bleeding. My face was already pretty bruised up after the event in the cafeteria, so I knew it looked worse than it was. My eyes were watering and I couldn’t breathe properly. Still, I was grinning. Sasha got me a rag and Enid told me to look at the floor so I didn’t inhale blood. She held the back of my head.

“What are you doing here?”

“I got here last night,” I said. “Figured I’d let you sleep, _thanks_ for returning the fucking favour.”

I heard Jesus snicker.

Enid scowled and smacked my arm.

“You’re such an asshole.”

“Don’t act like it’s a surprise,” I said, and she just looked at me, and then she started laughing really hard, and then we were hugging.

“Hi.”

“Hey.”

“I missed you.”

“Missed you, too.”

She squeezed me.

“Careful,” I said, “don’t let me bleed on you.”

* * *

Jesus showed me to where I could wash the blood off my face by the paddocks. Enid felt pretty guilty, so she tagged along. They both filled me in on what had been happening in the last five days. Maggie’s baby was growing healthy and well, and she was spending every waking moment she could making lists and developments for Hilltop; Enid said sometimes she’d fall asleep at her desk. “Maggie Rhee for president,” she joked. I hadn’t seen much of Daryl since that morning, but it was good to know he was around. The Hilltop people were being trained to fight too, by Sasha—Jesus told me Enid was so good at knife-throwing that she could hit a tree trunk as thin as my arm without missing. Enid blushed.

It didn’t take long for my bleeding to stop, so once it did, we headed back to Jesus’ trailer. Inside, Sasha startled and turned to us as we shut the door. She had a book in her hand. She snapped it shut and stuffed her pocket.

“I was... looking for something to read, the other day.”

Sasha was a terrible liar. Jesus seemed to know this, too, because he smiled at her.

“You can have the bullets,” he said.

Enid looked at me. We frowned at each other.

“I didn’t know you had a gun,” Jesus added.

“I didn’t,” Sasha confessed. “I do now.”

“Sasha, don’t go. Not yet.”

She sighed and shook her head.

“Rosita didn’t come here to train people,” Jesus realised. “You’re both going after Negan.” I was confused. As Enid crossed the room, again, she looked at me and we frowned at each other. I couldn’t tell by her face if she knew about all this. “You can’t do that without people,” Jesus said. “ _A lot_ of people.”

“We’ve talked about this,” Sasha said. “I know what you think, and I appreciate that. But I’m not gonna change my mind. _She’s_ not.” She looked at me and Enid. We were both leant against the table, shoulder-to-shoulder, frowning our frowns. “Does Maggie know Rosita’s here yet?”

Enid looked up from the floor slowly. She did that, when she was anxious; her eyelids would get all droopy like blinking was difficult, like her eyes were too heavy.

“Uh... I—I don’t think so,” she answered. “I didn’t.”

“Me neither,” I said.

“You should tell her,” Enid said, stepping forward. “About all of it.”

“No,” Sasha said. “Not yet!” She paced for a second, then calmed down. “I’m still getting ready.” She pointed at her jacket and rucksack. “And the thing is, Rosita is _going._ With or without me. So it should be _with_ me.”

“Then I’ll go, too,” Jesus said.

“Me, too,” Enid and I said at the same time.

“No!” Sasha yelled. “The Hilltop has to be ready for what happens _after_. Maggie _needs_ you.”

Jesus just looked at her.

“She needs you too.”

“Not anymore,” she said.

I didn’t know how I felt about this. I was conflicted. I wanted Negan to die. And if anybody could do it, it was Sasha and Rosita. I knew they were good planners too, but the way I saw it, they weren’t making any plans to get out alive.

I looked at Enid. She had that look in her eye, the same look she had that day the Wolves got in, like she wanted to get away from here. It scared me. But then she glanced at me and the look in her eye went away again.

“She has everyone else,” Sasha told us. “And they have her.”

Jesus stepped closer to her.

“You can stay. I know you can,” he said. “But I know you won’t and she won’t. But I wish you would. ‘Cause it’s a long life, and then it isn’t.”

I inhaled. Enid inhaled. The whole trailer and Hilltop outside of it inhaled... except Sasha.

Sasha held her breath.

“You can take anything else you need,” Jesus said, “but you and Rosita _need_ to talk to Maggie. You owe her that much.” He backed up, took an apple and a lantern, and then left the trailer.

Sasha looked at me. She gave me this crap sorry look and I didn’t buy it. Instead I looked at Enid. Her arms were crossed and she looked small and stern and _Enid._ Sasha sighed and walked across the room to us.

“Listen,” Sasha whispered, “you have to protect her, no matter what—both of you.” When she added that last part, she looked at me. I think she expected me to look away out of submission or something. If it was a month before, I would have. But this time I looked and I frowned and it took Sasha off guard because her eyes suddenly went all soft.

“She’s the future of this place,” Sasha said, quieter, talking to Enid now rather than me. “I know it.” She touched Enid’s arm, and her voice came out a little broken. “So are you.” Enid wiped her face while Sasha took out a small braid of string from her pocket and handed it over. “Here. Hold on to this for me. It’s for the baby. Maybe you can work on it while I’m gone.”

 _Gone._ I hated that word. It was heavy, like the word _alone_ and _love_ and _family_ ; so heavy my shoulders ached. Enid’s too; I could hear the weight in her voice...

“Okay.”

I was mad. And I’d started to tear up. I hated how I cried when I was mad. I had to wipe my eyes quickly on my shoulders—pretending to adjust my prosthetic.

“Sasha,” Enid whispered.

“Yeah.”

Enid took a deep breath. “In ten minutes, I’m going to tell Maggie what’s going on. It’s up to you what you want to do with that... I’m doing what you asked.”

She left, and Sasha was smiling after her. She stopped when she realised I wasn’t going too.

“Oliver—”

“You’re missing something if you think I’m going to let you go alone,” I told her. Sasha sighed tiredly and stepped forward, but I didn’t let her speak. “Let me go with you,” I said. “Let me. Sash—”

“No.”

“I can have your back. Both of you. Look, I’ll follow you anyway—you know I will.”

“ _No,_ ” she hissed again. “I know you _won’t_.”

I grimaced, then stepped back and scoffed. “Yeah?”

Sasha took my arm. She said to me, “Oliver, why is it so hard for you to accept that some people don’t _want_ saving?”

“You’re killing yourself!”

It sounded broken and weak coming out of me. Broken and weak enough that Sasha’s eyes shifted between both of mine. Fast. Wet. She didn’t even try to argue.

“This is it,” she said. “This is goodbye.”

I hated her for saying that.

It was crazy how small I felt despite being taller than her. I felt like a bug. She went up on tiptoes to kiss my forehead, and then she let go of my arm and nodded. I kept looking at the floor. I kept trying not to cry, or scream, or snatch that hollow book off the table and throw it through the mother-fucking window, so I just nodded once, then walked out of the trailer.

I was so angry, thinking the world was fucking me over and I was too scarred to take it again. I wanted someone to blame. Jesus. He’d been helping Sasha plan this, for weeks. I was going to walk up to him. Walk right up and throw my fist through his jaw. But I guessed that wasn’t really fair, or realistic, so I followed Enid. She was heading to Barrington house and she was crying. That silent, secret, _Enid_ kind of crying. And all my angry turned into something else.

She heard me coming.

She wiped her face and turned to me. I just looked at her, all quiet and miserable and sad. I knew my face was wet and flushed. I was going to hug her. I was going to sit with her on the porch steps and tuck her under my arm and put my head against hers and shut my eyes for long enough that the world would melt away from us for a few minutes...

But a bell rang.

“THE SAVIORS ARE COMING!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because even in the apocalypse, people are still sending dick pics.
> 
> Btw, you should definitely check out Ranson's Blue Room. It's beautiful. And since I didn't exactly want to go into detail about what Carl looked like in the drawing, I figured the reference was enough of an explanation :)
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading (.


	130. Season 7 ~ The Other Side, Part 2: Run Away

**~Oliver~**

* * *

 

We had to run. The escape-hatch Sasha had dug was on the other side of Hilltop and the gates were already being opened. Engines revved.

“We’ll never make it in time,” Maggie panted.

“Come on!” Enid powered on. She took us to the root cellar by the side of the house and yanked the doors open. “Just stay down there. I’ll keep them away. They’re not the same ones who came to Alexandria.”

I stumbled on the third step down into the cellar and Daryl caught me by the collar before I could smash my skull through the second set of doors. I could hear Simon’s voice immediately as the engines stopped.

We rushed inside the cellar, shutting the door behind us.

Daryl peeked through to the staircase while Maggie and I moved a shelving unit, full with crates, for something to hide behind.

“Daryl,” Maggie whispered. “ _Daryl!_ ”

He relented and met us by the shelf. He had his knife drawn.

The three of us huddled into the corner of the room, hidden inside the shadows as Daryl pulled the shelving unit across to hide us.

Above us, inside the house, we heard heavy footsteps and muffled voices. They moved around a lot, and it wasn’t long before we heard Enid’s voice outside.

“Hi!” She was out of breath. “Uh. I’ve got... fresh veggies.”

“Stop,” a Savior said. Male. Low voice. Patronising. “They're _vegetables_. Use the _whole_ word. We have time.”

“Uh, okay,” Enid replied. “I have these _vegetables_ they told me to bring over. Uh, the basket's pretty heavy.” She chuckled cutely. “For me, I mean. Probably not you. Uh, here! Load them in the truck, and, uh, if you meet me by the garden, I can get you the rest—”

“Stop,” he said. “I don't know who you think I am, or who we are. Load them yourself. I'm busy.”

Something hit the floor—I hoped for the guy’s life that it wasn’t Enid.

“Oh!” Enid gasped, flustered. “Sorry. I'm sorry.”

“Girl, pick that shit up right now and scram. And I'll take that, _now..._ Don't make me cut it off you, girl.”

I bit back curses. I didn’t know what the guy was talking about. Her necklace? Her bracelet? What would he want? And then I felt a hand on my wrist. Maggie’s. I knew that I was angry but I didn’t realise _how_ angry. Not until I saw that I was shaking with it, all that anger. My knife was in my hand. It was trembling.

The cellar door opened.

Someone came down the stairs and in through the second doors. It was the guy; tall, stocky. He had a grey beanie... and he was searching around the cellar. He took a box, then another.

Daryl was going to ambush him. He began edging towards the corner of our hidey-space. He was going to do it. He was going to. But Maggie took his arm, and he didn’t.

The air was frozen, and then finally, the Savior left the cellar. When the door shut, I felt my shoulders fall a-hundred feet. The guy was gone, but Daryl still marched across the room and glared through the crack in the door like he was waiting for him to return.

Maggie sighed.

“You were gonna kill that guy.”

“He was gonna find us.”

“He wasn't, and he didn't.”

“He deserved to die.”

Maggie didn’t take her eyes off him.

“Ever since you got here, you haven't said a word to me.” She looked little. Little like a child. “Would you look at me? Please?”

And then I realised Daryl Dixon was crying. Really crying. I don’t think I’d ever seen him cry before, not like that. Not like there was so much sad inside him that he couldn’t even hold it in anymore.

“Daryl...” Maggie said.

His voice shook when he replied.

“I'm sorry,” he sobbed, “I'm sorry.”

Carl had told me what happened, how Daryl swung out at Negan on that night, that terrible night, and as punishment, Glenn was killed too.

“It wasn't your fault,” Maggie told him.

“It was.”

“No. It wasn't.”

She said it to him. She said it to all of him. To his back and his front and his hair and his shoulders. His shirt and his fingernails and the mole on the left side of his face above his top lip. And he just stood there and cried.

“You're one of the good things in this world,” Maggie went on. “That's what Glenn thought. And he would know, 'cause he was one of the good things, too.” Her breath shuddered. “And, uh. I wanted to kill that guy, too. I wanted to string them all up and watch them die. But we have to win.”

She held him like she held me last night when I was sad, like she was already a mother to everybody invited in through the Hilltop’s gates. I was so proud of her. That felt weird to me, to be proud of a grown woman, to be proud of a grown _anybody_. Kids weren’t meant to look at adults and think that; that they were glad they’d watched _them_ grow. But I had, and I did, and I was just standing there looking at my feet and trying not to let all that _sadproudweird_ inside of me swallow up the whole cellar.

“Help me win,” Maggie whispered.

Daryl lifted his head...  
and nodded.

* * *

The Saviors had gone.

I talked to Enid. She forgot to talk to Maggie, after everything that’s happened. I didn’t rush her. It was hard to rush anything at Hilltop. Plus, Enid was pretty cut up. That guy? He didn’t take her necklace, or her bracelet. He took her knife. Her mother’s knife.

I’d been thinking for a while. I’d been thinking about the way Enid’s eyes looked earlier, like she wanted to run. And I’d been thinking about Sasha, how she was planning to run soon as well. I’d been thinking and thinking and thinking, and wondering if I was wrong the other night with Carl, that I wasn’t done running. Maybe there was something wrong with me, like I was some curse, and that it might have just been better if I ran, too.

Ran for what, or _from_ what, I didn’t know.

Thing is, my talent was running. Had been for years. Even before the end of the world. I ran and I ran and I ran. That’s how it worked. It’s how I protected myself. I thought I was done having to do that, but people were letting me down again, people were saying goodbye, and the only way I knew how to make it hurt less was to let them down first.

Still, there I was, sitting inside Jesus’ trailer with my rucksack on the table in front of me and my gun in my hand. It feels smooth and cold, and heavy. I clenched it, and then I relaxed. I didn’t holster it. Once I did, it would mean I’d have to go. So instead I thought about Maggie. I thought about Enid. And Daryl and Sasha. Earlier, Jesus came by and set a glass vase filled with wild flowers on the table beside me, just left it there and said, “Yellow, for forgiveness,” only I didn’t know who he thought I needed to forgive. Him? Sasha? Carol?

I didn’t know.

I didn’t know anything.

**_How long have you been sitting here?_ **

That was another thing about Hilltop. It was more than just ‘hard to rush’ there. Time just didn’t seem to exist. I didn’t know why. I started thinking about it a lot though. Sometimes I scared myself thinking I’d been there lifetimes rather than just a day. I felt crazy.

**_You digress..._ **

I stood up. I grabbed my stuff. And I—

Somebody cursed in the distance, and screamed.

I dropped my bag, took my gun, then ran out of the trailer. When I got to the gate, a small crowd of Hilltop people had gathered. Some guy, Freddie, was wrestling with a lasso... and Roan on the other end of it.

He charged.

Freddie cursed. He dodged away and threw the rope down, and before I could do anything, Roan turned on his heel and bolted. The lasso trailed like a snake and I tried to grab the end but it burned through my fingers and palm.

“ _Ack!_ Roan!”

Freddie was patting dust off his clothes. I’d already gotten up and started running.

“Ay, kid! Where are you going?!”

“He’s mine!” I yelled back. “Don’t worry, tell Maggie I’ll be back.”

I followed Roan’s tracks, which was easy because he’d left a dust cloud. When I found him, the end of the lasso had gotten caught against a truck tire. I saw it happen. I saw the rope tangle, catch, and Roan still galloping at full speed as he reached the end of the tether and was thrown head over heels by his own momentum. His neck jerked backwards so violently I thought it had snapped. He landed hard on his back, flailing and screaming. I’d never heard a horse scream before. I didn’t even know they _could_ scream. But Roan _screamed._ He was strangling himself. When horses panic, they’re like people. They get stupid and dangerous and fight or flight takes over and in that moment Roan was fighting for his life.

His screams were tightened as the rope clenched around his throat, and I couldn’t get close without a hoof going through my jaw. It was like he was galloping up-side down.

“ROAN! STOP!”

Walkers were coming. One, opposite me, tried to get at him but Roan threw his back leg out at just the right moment to knock its head right off its shoulders. He was on his side, exhausting himself, so I threw myself forward and sliced my knife through the rope and he was able to scramble to his legs again. But the rope was still too tight, and he was still panicking, so he ran again.

“Dammit!”

I had to take down the last three walkers, used a bullet, and as the sound rang in my ears I ran after Roan again.

This time, when I found him, he was choking. His head was bowed and he was gagging for air and stumbling. His bloody knees hit the ground and then the rest of him did too, and a dirt cloud was kicked up around him. I was already there. I collapsed to my knees and forced the rope away, had to cut it, and Roan just laid there heaving and worn out and barely conscious. I was worried he was having a heart attack. I didn’t know if horses could have heart attacks. I didn’t know what to do for a horse who’s _having_ a heart attack, so I just sat there and held his head in my lap and tried to coo to him.

After long enough, I realised I was waiting. Roan was going to die. And I tried to be ready for it. It was dumb, to be sad over a dying horse. Or a dead kitten. Or a dead goat or pig. But that’s how sad worked. Something you cared about was missing or going to be, and you were just sad about it.

Even so, after a while, Roan was still breathing, and he had enough energy to sit up so he wasn’t flat on the ground anymore, and he just laid there for a while and let me pet his head and rub his neck and whisper small comforts into his ear.

We were in an old, dried-up ditch—the kind that wouldn’t be easy to climb out of. I didn’t even remember climbing down into it. Still, somehow it was nice; just sitting and looking and listening and feeling. Roan must have thought so too because after a while, he was licking and chewing on his own mouth; I’d picked up on that, that licking and chewing was what he did when he was comfortable.

Suddenly, Roan pulled himself to his feet. I stood back and watched him shake the dust off his body. Grey clouds rose from his fur like a second skin, and then rained down around him, catching the sunset light in the specs.

He staggered up onto the track quickly. It took me a few tries, but I managed to get myself out of the ditch, too.

Roan didn’t let me pet him right away. When I tried to touch his neck he bit me, but he let me put my belt around his head and nose. Only I stopped short from pulling him to come with me. I got to thinking that I didn’t want to bring him back. Or rather that I shouldn’t.

I sighed and walked away...

“See you around, man.”

...except Roan followed me.

“No, Roan. You gotta go.”

I turned again and walked... and grimaced when I heard hoofbeats clopping after me.

“Dammit...”

I turned, scowled. Roan looked tired, like he wanted me to make the hurt go away. I couldn’t. I never could. He took a deep wheezy breath and stepped forward to put his muzzle against my pocket. I stepped away.

“Roan. _Go._ I don’t have anything. Go get your own food. There’s grass, right over there.”

He rubbed my chest with his head. I pushed him away. He did it again. He wanted me to scratch an itch. I wanted to scratch it for him.

I shoved him back.

“GO!”

Roan spooked and backed up. He put his ears back, then forward.

“FUCK OFF!” I screamed.

He just looked at me. It was cold that day. Our breath made fog. At least mine did. Not his. Roan was holding his breath. I didn’t know horses could hold their breath.

“RUN AWAY!” I roared. “YOU’RE MEANT TO RUN AWAY!” I picked up dirt and flung it at him. Roan threw his head up and squealed. I did it again. And again. “RUN AWAY! _VAFFANCULO, SI CAZZO!_ RUN AWAY!”

I sprinted. I rammed right into his chest. He didn’t try to get away. He just backed up like he thought that was what I wanted him to do. It wasn’t. I wanted him to lash out, kick or bite or buck. I kept yelling and screaming and pushing and then I fell over and cried. Roan stood away from me, staring, and I just curled up on the ground and cried.

“Why won’t you run away?” I sobbed. “Why won’t you run away anymore?!”

He wouldn’t run away.

_I wouldn’t run away._

I guess I realised that it wasn’t only me who’d decided it.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered into his fur. “I’m sorry.”

Even after all that, Roan let me take us back to Hilltop. I didn’t know if it was a good idea to keep Roan there, what with the danger of Saviors possibly recognising him. Roan wasn’t the only horse in Virginia but he was certainly the only one-eared horse.

“Shit.”

I didn’t know what to do.

* * *

The sun was setting when Roan and I got back.

I was still pretty emotional, so I didn’t really react very well when Gregory came storming out of Barrington house towards me, waving a thumb and demanding I go back to where I came from. He was mad that I’d used my gun outside: “You’ll attract every one of those things for miles!”

I apologised for it.

“Not good enough,” Gregory said.

Freddie, who’d been waiting for me, had already given me a rope to make a halter, so I just pulled Roan to accompany me towards the cow pen. Gregory yelled at me again, but he was standing behind Roan and Roan didn’t like that, so he kicked out. Gregory yelped. I sort of just looked back at him to make sure he wasn’t hurt. I didn’t mean for that to happen but I wasn’t exactly sorry for it.

“I didn’t agree to let this beast stay!” he said—at a distance, wiping the dirty graze on his pant leg. “In fact, I didn’t agree to let _you_ stay.”

I just shrugged and ran the back of my finger over Roan’s chin.

“Boy, you better look at me when I’m talking to you!”

I looked at him. “It’s Oliver.”

“It’s what?”

“My name. It’s Oliver.”

“Right, right,” Gregory said, waving a hand. He stuttered for what else he wanted to say. “You can’t stay in Jesus’ trailer. Too many people.”

“I... I think I like it,” I said.

Gregory gave me a funny look. “It’s a fire hazard.”

I didn’t say anything. I’d grown not to be afraid of fire anymore.

“Don’t expect to stay for nothing,” he said after an awkward pause, pointing a finger. “You’ll have to work. You understand, don’t you, Jasper?”

I squinted at him, then shrugged.

“No more free rides on the teat!”

I wanted to say I’d ride a dick before I rode any teat, but I realised that would’ve been a bad strategy and instead I just waved over my shoulder.

“And that horse is gonna have to go.”

I stopped, looked at him.

“We’ve already got enough mouths to feed,” Gregory said. I narrowed my eyes and walked over to him. Gregory backed up a few steps. Roan had his ear flat back. “That gonna be a problem?”

“Where’s Dr. Carson?”

I already knew. Enid told us...

Gregory traded Dr. Carson for a crate of aspirin.

I looked him in the eye and tilted my head. “Was it fun, kneeling?”

He glared at me.

“I didn’t kneel,” he defended, looking me up and down, “not this time.”

“Great, man.”

Gregory’s eyes narrowed.

“Didn’t anybody teach you how to talk to your elders, boy?” he asked me.

“Sure.”

“ _...Sir._ ”

“Oh,” I said, “you don’t have to call me sir.” And I had this shit-eating grin on my face because I’d never said that to anybody before.

Gregory’s face, on the other hand, became a furnace. He didn’t say anything for a minute, and then this tiny grin slid across the corner of his mouth and I wasn’t sure why, but it made me nervous, a little—a lot. Without saying anything else to me, he just nodded his head and walked away.

“Freddie,” he said, “go find Jesus for me, would you? Need to speak with him about his _guests_.”

“Uh, yeah. Sure.”

I tied Roan up next to the cow paddock on a long rope so he could graze. Maggie helped me tend to him. He had some pretty serious rope-burn around his throat and mane, a few cuts and scratches on his knees, and he was still wheezing from the strain on his larynx, but Maggie kissed under his eye and told him he would be okay, and Roan was as sweet to her as he was to me.

I wondered if it was the pregnant thing, like he could tell, like he knew she was the one who needed protecting. When Maggie wasn’t looking, I called him a, “Sap,” and Roan put his ear back at me like he was offended. I laughed and pushed his teeth away—“Dork.”

Maggie smiled at us.

“You’re good with horses,” she said.

I shrugged. “Picked up some tricks at the Kingdom. My friend, Benjamin, taught me. Before I went back to Alexandria again.”

We fussed over Roan for a few minutes until we were ready to go back to the trailer. I went to the table. I put my bag away. I looked at the yellow flowers.

 _Me,_ I thought. _I think I forgive me._

“Everything okay, sweetie?” Maggie asked me.

I looked at her and smiled.

“Yeah. Everything’s okay.”

And that was when Daryl crashed into the trailer. We both startled.

“Ay, you seen Sasha and Rosita?” he said when he saw us.

Maggie and I shook our heads.

“Not since this morning,” Maggie said.

My stomach dropped. Shit. I was such an idiot. Too much time not rushing. This whole time I hadn’t thought to tell Maggie what was going on. ‘Soon’ was sooner than I thought.

Daryl was already leaving, running towards Barrington house. He burst inside, then came out a minute or so later with Jesus. We all gathered on the porch. We didn’t have to discuss. We already knew what was happening...

“They’re going after Negan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you tell yet that I ship Desus?
> 
> Again, the scene where Oliver tracked down Roan was adapted and used in a final assignment for prose class last spring, and now you can find it over on my FictionPress account. It's the story called: 'Prose: Stay'


	131. Season 7 ~ Something They Need: Guns

**~Carl~**

* * *

 

 _I’m nothing but a low life_  
_Thinking ‘bout my own life_  
 _I can’t help myself from falling_  
 _Can’t help myself from falling..._

We were on our way to Hilltop.

Jesus saw us first. Us, as in, half of Alexandria walking in through the gates early in the morning before the sun was fully above the horizon. He and Daryl were sitting together by the main house, not talking. Daryl was just smoking, and Jesus was just watching him do that. They looked stressed, but the type of stressed that wasn’t as bad as it might’ve been if we’d shown up earlier. That type of stressed _after_ being really really stressed, where the stress has had enough time to become more bearable, and so they were just sitting, smoking and smoke-watching.

Daryl stood up and watched us approach, and Jesus a little behind him, crossed his arms; beanie tucked in a back pocket.

“You left Kingdom,” Dad said.

Daryl narrowed his eyes, chewed his mouth, and nodded, and that seemed to be all they needed to say about it.

“We’re here to talk with Maggie,” Dad said. “You both too, and Sasha.”

“About what?” Jesus asked.

“Need your help—see if you can’t help us in gettin’ some guns.”

“From where?” Daryl asked.

“Oceanside.”

Daryl looked at Jesus, who nodded. They sort of talked in their heads then, Jesus and Daryl, and then Jesus said/thought something to Daryl that made Daryl grit his teeth and nod too, so Jesus turned to us.

“But uh, you should know something, Rick – everyone...” Jesus looked at us all. He was frowning, frowning in this way like he knew we weren’t going to like what he was about to tell us. “Sasha’s not here. She was. Rosita, too. But they left.”

We all stared at him.

Jesus sighed and jerked his chin towards the trailers.

“Come,” he said. “Talk to Maggie.”

* * *

I left the grown-ups to talk. After all, within a few minutes I’d heard what I needed to hear; that Sasha and Rosita had run away to kill Negan, that they were both likely not going to make it back alive, that there wasn’t even anything we could do about it until this whole Oceanside business was over. It was splattering spirits worse than walkers between cabled-cars, so I left to find Oliver.

Daryl said Maggie might know. She didn’t. Maggie said he might be with Enid. He wasn’t. And Enid said he might be by the paddocks.

_Bingo._

It was still early, but I’d heard Oliver was up all night worrying over Sasha and Rosita with the others... so he was asleep, laid across a bale of hay.

Roan, who looked like shit, like he’d been drug through thorns or something, was tied up out of reach.

Oliver had a bucket hanging from his prosthetic hook, and had his face covered by a coat he’d borrowed from me. I tapped him in the general area his face would be. It startled him enough that the bucked swing around his arm and splashed everywhere. Roan spooked, as did some the cows in the paddock over, and I laughed while Oliver struggled to calm down enough to pull the coat away and put the bucket down.

And then I barely had a chance to catch him as he flung himself at me.

He clung around my neck and made this crazy _“Gyraahh!_ ” noise, and I held him tightly and grinned into his shoulder. His flannel shirt was washed-out and colourful and soft, and the smell of him made me dizzy. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to drag him behind the haybale and kiss him until he couldn’t feel his own face. God. It had only been a day. _It had only been a day._ But I missed him so much.

“What are you doing here?” I heard inside my shirt. Oliver sounded overwhelmed, like he might burst into tears.

“Stuff,” I said, “things.” Oliver was stuttering so I kept talking. “We’re going to this place, Oceanside. Today. Tara says there’s guns. We’re gonna try get them to help us fight.”

“Us?”

“Us,” I nodded. “All of us. We’re all here.”

Oliver smiled, “That’s so great! Oh, damn, we—uh... Why... Why are you looking at me like that?”

I pointed and asked, “What happened to your face?”

“Oh. Yeah. Enid, uh, kinda stood on it... Yeah.”

I laughed. And then I kissed him. And then Oliver took my hand and pulled me out of the paddock and towards a secluded part of Hilltop.

“Think we have time?”

“No,” I said, only it sounded like a breathless nod.

We squeezed through a narrow gap between one side of Barrington house and the backs of some equipment shacks, and even though Oliver took my face and pushed me to the wall and pressed himself against me and started kissing me like he wanted us to do a lot more than just kissing, he still managed to speak...

“How are you, Carl?”

I just took his wrist and waist and nodded. Our noses touched for a second while Oliver looked at me, then I pulled him back into me and kept on kissing him.

“Everything okay back home?” he asked.

“Yeah—Yeah, Oliver.”

“I missed you.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Saviors came, yesterday.” His mouth was against my throat and his hand slipped inside my pants, and I gasped at the sky. “We hid,” Oliver went on, “me, Mags and Daryl; was fine – _questo stronzo maltrattò_ Enid.”

I didn’t even try to understand that.

“But I’m gonna get her knife back.”

“Oliver...”

“Oh. And your drawing,” he muttered into my collar, “it was so good, man.”

“ _M-hm... haa._ ”

“When did you do it?”

“Do— _Dowhat?_ ”

“The drawing.”

“What drawing?”

“ _Your_ drawing.”

I whimpered.

Then I said, “Don’t—I don’t remember.”

Oliver pulled back suddenly enough I had to clutch the wall as not to collapse. His hand, however, stayed in my pants.

“You don’t remember?”

“Come on, m—man,” I panted, “can—can we talk about this later?”

“But it was so great.”

I think I whimpered again but it sounded like a yelp, and Oliver was doing this _thing_. He called me beautiful. He called me other things. I told him to, “ _Shut up,_ please,” so Oliver did, and then he did another _thing_ and I lost my mind. I bit my tongue so I wouldn’t scream. I thought I was going to burst. I _loved_ thinking I was going to burst. I kissed him so hard he was breathing through my mouth. My lungs for his. His mouth for mine. And then he got down on his knees and I was reeling and _crazy_ and tangling my fingers through his hair and gasping....until it was all suddenly and madly over.

I was exhausted.

Slowly, Oliver stood up. He looked at me. He wiped his mouth. I remembered how to use my hands, so I buckled up my jeans and belt again. I was all sweaty and dopey and a little awkward and embarrassed.

I looked around, a little out of breath.

“Jeez,” I said, “the whole of Hilltop could have seen that.”

Oliver just smirked.

“Nobody comes back here,” he said.

I watched him. I didn’t know what to say. I just wanted him to kiss me, so he did. He kissed my cheek, then my lips... tugging them with his teeth. My breath caught.

I looked into his eyes and I could see them when he pulled away from me. As the breeze moved the trees around, the sun caught them, his eyes, and the brown in them turned into all these gold embers and I could hear them crackle and explode like fireworks. I blinked, taking a mental snap-shot, something I’d draw later: _Fireworkeyes._

Overwhelmed, I put my head back against the wall and swallowed. I figured we were still pretty stupid to have just done that in broad daylight, and my dad would surely come looking for us to leave any second, but I also figured I didn’t really care, and then I reached forward and started fumbling with Oliver’s belt.

Oliver seemed a little surprised, and then this slow grin loosened his face, and he shook his head incredulously.

“You’re a fire hazard, man,” he said.

“Says the guy with the sun in his pocket.”

Oliver gave me a funny look and giggled like he was high. “What does that even mean, Carl?”

“Nothing,” I said, and I kissed him, _hard_. And I made it last... “You’re sure nobody’ll come by?”

He nodded.

“Might need to make it quick.”

“Trust me,” he said, “it will be.”

I pressed our foreheads, then pushed my hand into his underwear and watched his eyes roll to the back of his head.

“It’s good to see you,” I said.

“You—You, too, man.”

I smiled at him.

“And you’re welcome,” I said, “for the drawing.”

Oliver just bit his lip and looked at what I was doing. Then he looked at me, looked and looked and _looked_ as I knelt down in front of him.

I glanced up.

“You good?”

He shut his eyes.

“So good, man.”

* * *

We didn’t get caught. We heard Dad calling for us just as Oliver was buckling back up.

While we all set up to leave, Gregory didn’t say anything to us. He just sat in his office and drank his whisky. Although I did hear him call Oliver _Arthur_ at one point, or maybe _Alexander_. I don’t remember. Still, we were out of his hair before the big expensive clock on his desk struck ten.

Maryland, on the east coast near Baltimore was Oceanside’s location.

The drive there took half the day. Dad, Michonne, Tara, Jesus, Enid, Oliver and I all took the RV. Aaron, Eric, Scott, Tobin, Francene and Gabriel took the eagle truck. Daryl tailed on his bike. Once we were close enough, we parked by a lake reserve.

There was a small rowboat.

Aaron rowed Dad, Daryl, Michonne and the explosives out across the lake to get them close enough to Oceanside to start set up, then while they began, Aaron came back to collect Eric, Scott and Tobin. Next, he collected Jesus, Gabriel and Francene. His last trip would be to collect Oliver, Enid, Tara and me. While we were waiting and taking watch, Enid asked me a question.

“Do you ever think about who you’ve killed?”

I looked at her. Oliver was standing beside her, too, but he kept his eyes on the water.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

* * *

When we were all on the other side, we finished rigging the explosives at the outskirts of Oceanside, just far enough for them not to hear or see us yet. Then, on a time schedule, Tara left with an unloaded gun to talk to their leader, Natania, and hopefully work out an agreement _before_ their time was up.

We waited.

And waited.

“Come on, Tara,” Oliver whispered to Lizzie’s watch head. “Give the signal. Give the signal...”

“How much longer?” Dad asked him.

“Uh, ten seconds.”

Oliver looked at me, then Dad, then back to his watch, counting down with his fingers.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

We covered our ears and ducked.

And Dad flicked the switch.

BOOM

I felt the shockwave. The screaming came from the camp while black ash and dirt rained down across the sky.

“Go! Go!”

KAPOW

After the second explosion, we could see through the trees women and children running. On the other side of Oceanside, Jesus, Aaron, Eric and Daryl had the arsenal covered, and Michonne had them covered from the trees. The Oceanside residents screamed at another explosion as it went off a little way left of the beaten track. It drove them to a clearing where the rest of us were waiting to ambush...

“Everybody down!” Francine roared.

“Hands on your heads!” Tobin.

“Stay calm,” Scott.

“We don't want anyone to get hurt,” I said. “Jus’ stay down and listen to what we say.”

“We want this to go as simply and as peacefully as possible,” Gabriel said, “all of you can make it that way.”

Jesus and Daryl came through with two more women; must’ve been trying to get to the arsenal.

“Get down over there,” Daryl told the woman with a ponytail. “Keep quiet.”

She sat, along with the second woman who had short hair. Someone called her Beatrice.

Dad was behind them.

“Now, we made a lot of noise,” he announced, pulling his rifle off over his head. “We wanna wrap this up quick, so you can send people to redirect anything coming this way. Tara said your forests are relatively clear, so we won't take any chances. _No one_ needs to get hurt. This is just about what you have, what we need.”

“Nobody's taking anything!”

We spun around.

An older woman trudged through the woodland, shoving Tara ahead at the end of her gun—not Tara’s. This gun was loaded. The lady had pale skin and messy grey hair tied back. With her was another woman, younger, early twenties maybe. She had long wavy black hair and brown skin.

“You need to let everyone go and leave right now,” the older lady said, squaring up ahead of Dad. “Just walk away or this one dies.”

Tara’s eyes stuck to him like glue.

Oliver’s gun was up. Mine too.

“Yeah, we'll leave you alone,” Dad said. “But we're taking your weapons with us—that's not gonna change. It's Natania, right?”

She peeked around Tara’s head and glared at him.

“Put the gun down,” Dad went on, “and let's talk about what we can change.”

“No,” Natania hissed. “Leave. Right now.”

Tara’s eyes went up to a tree in the distance... “Michonne, _don't!_ ”

A few Oceanside women were crying. A little boy, younger than five by the looks, was trembling so hard the woman holding him was jolting. I thought of a little boy who died once:

 _“Mom..._  
_Mom..._  
 _Mom..._

_...MOM!”_

“We just wanna be left alone,” Natania growled.

“Yeah, we'll leave you alone,” Dad tried. “Just let go of her, now. _Or_ we'll kill you. None of us want that.”

“They want us to fight the Saviors,” the younger woman, who I realised must’ve been Cyndie, said to her people.

“We tried that,” Natalia said, curt. “We lost. _Too much._ We're not gonna lose anymore. Not our guns, not our safety, not after everything we've done to get here.”

“We're gonna win,” Tara said over her, “with your guns, _with_ or _without_ your help.”

My gun was down. Everybody else’s too. Enid was across from us. Her hands were shaking.

“Natania,” Dad said, “put the gun down.”

“You kill me and you die,” Tara said. “And my people take the guns and _nothing_ changes.”

“Maybe we should try.”

Beatrice said that, and the crazy thing was that most of the other women started nodding.

Natalia’s face reeled, like she’d just been slapped.

“Grandma, stop,” Cyndie said. “It's over. Just talk to them, okay?”

“IT'S _NOT_ OVER!” She yanked on Tara’s collar. Tara winced. “They've forgotten,” Natalia accused. “You've _all_ forgotten. Some of you _actually_ want to fight them? After everything? We can lose our guns, but us leaving this place to _fight?_ After everything, I have to remind you!

Yes.

I am gonna do this.

And then I'm gonna die.

But it's that _important!_

This is your life, all of you. Remember what it looks like. Remember what they did to us! You need to see this. Open your eyes!”

I got flashes of that night in the line-up. I pictured Tara’s brains splattering across the forest floor. But that wasn’t going to happen. It wasn’t going to happen because—

“RICK!” Michonne screamed. “WALKERS!” And Cyndie threw a fist at Natania’s head and the old lady hit the ground hard.

—Enid was standing right behind her, gun up and shuddering.

The growling woke her up. It woke all of us up. We could see the shambling figures through the trees. The walkers around Oceanside were different. Most were bloated and soggy and rotted away with seaweed caught around their necks and coral growing in their eyeballs and along their skin.

“Everybody up!” Dad yelled. “Get the children behind us! They're coming!”

“First shift, join them on the line,” Beatrice yelled. They were trained. “Knives out. Dead only. _Dead only!_ ”

“Don't go anywhere,” I heard Dad ask her.

He stepped ahead beside me, the rest of us lined up and aiming.

“Everyone!” Dad yelled. “Shots within ten feet of the line. That's it.”

We took them all out in good time and efficiency. Even Michonne had us covered from the trees. There was this little girl, no older that twelve. She kicked a walker’s knees in and drover her knife through its skull so fast I almost double took. Oliver did. He double took and he shuddered. But he kept shooting. I did too. As did everybody else. The Oceansides’ _‘first shift’_ were good, too. Really good. It took less than a minute for over thirty walkers to be laid still on the ground.

Beatrice returned Dad’s knife and they shook hands.

“No,” Natalia muttered. She had a bruise on her face and a limp as she walked away. “We're not fighting them with you. So take your damn guns and go!”

That’s all we needed to hear.

When we got to Oceansides’ campsite, we gathered all their guns and carried them back towards the boat. Me and Enid were sharing the load of a rifle case. It was heavy. But for some reason _Enid_ looked like she was feeling it worse, the heaviness. I got this hunch that she was still being weighed down by what she almost had to do back there...

I glanced back at Oliver, who was lugging a big wicker basket with Jesus. I looked at the old scar on his temple, and I thought about the Governor. I thought about Ron, and Simon, and Negan, and how much the world would be different if I’d just taken a shot, taken all of them... so I turned back to Enid.

“It's not just the ones I killed,” I told her. “I think about the people I didn't kill, too.”

* * *

We got back to Alexandria later that night, Rosita was at home already. She looked exhausted and drained and like she had too much to say and not enough energy to get it all out yet.

“Hey, are you okay?” Enid asked her.

“Where's Sasha?” Jesus, too.

We all looked at her. The breeze swayed her hair and cricket songs flew between us all like rushing water, like the night was alive around our ankles and fingertips.

“There's someone here,” she said.

* * *

Rosita took Dad, Michonne, Tara, Daryl and Jesus to the brownstone apartments to meet the _‘someone’_ Rosita was talking about.

Oliver, Enid and I weren’t allowed in. Maggie was keeping an eye on Judith at home, us too by default, except she was tired, so she fell asleep quickly and we were able to sneak out to the Brownstone cell anyway. _We weren’t allowed inside._ So we stayed _outside_...and listened through the window.

As we got close, we heard: “He says he wants to help us.” and, “That true? You wanna help?”

“I do.”

We peeked, and inside the cell, Dwight was standing there watching them.

“That son of a...”

“Sh,” Oliver said to me. I gave him a look. He gave me one back, then tugged my sleeve so I’d look into the cell again.

My father was now holding the barrel of his Python between Dwight’s eyes.

“Get on your knees.”

Dwight did.

“Look at me.”

Again, Dwight did.

“ _Why?_ ” Dad asked.

“'Cause I want it stopped.”

It was hard to hear Dwight’s voice. He seemed to only talk in rumbles, the deep ones from under your stomach. And the window was murky and blurred. It took more focus trying to see _and_ hear, so we mostly just tried to hear.

“I want Negan dead.”

“So why don't you kill him?” Dad asked.

“Can't just be me,” Dwight replied. “They're all Negan.”

I could hear that a million times and it would always make me uncomfortable.

“That girl you murdered,” Tara spoke. “She had a name... Her name was Denise, and she was a doctor. And she _helped_ people.”

“I wasn’t aiming for her.”

Then there was a gasp and grunting and heavy breathing. When Oliver peeked through the window, his eyes widened.

“What is it?”

Oliver didn’t answer me. Enid tugged his sleeve but he wouldn’t look away. He seemed... excited.

“Do it,” Tara said inside. “ _Do it._ ”

“You wanna end it this way,” Dwight said, “you go ahead, Daryl. I'm sorry. I am. I know you want to.”

“He could just be here to see if you were here,” Dad.

“We can't trust him,” Michonne.

“He owned me,” Dwight went on. “But not anymore. What I did, I was doing it for someone else. She just got away. So now I'm here. So are you because of her.”

“Do it!” Tara yelled.

Oliver’s grip tightened on the window ledge.

“There's another choice,” Dwight rasped.

“Daryl,” Tara spoke over him. “Daryl, you knew her.”

“Negan trusts me,” Dwight urged. “We work together, we can stop him. You knew me then, and you know me now. You know I'm not lying. I'm not.”

“Do it. Do it!”

Enid and I couldn’t even see. Oliver could. He whispered, “ _Do it, man,_ ” and he wouldn’t even blink. But Daryl must not have done it because Oliver sat back, disappointed.

Enid looked at me, uncomfortable.

“They have Sasha,” Rosita said, “if she's even alive.”

“Why didn't you say something?” Jesus asked. “He could be our only chance to get her back.”

“Because I don't trust him. But I trust Daryl.”

“Negan's coming soon,” Dwight said. “Tomorrow. Three trucks probably. Twenty Saviors and him. I can slow them down, bring some trees down in the road, buy a little time for you guys to get ready.”

Oliver and I looked at each other. Sometimes, if he was anxious enough, not just his hand would shake but both his arms too; his prosthetic made clunky metal noises.

“If you can take them out, that's where we start,” Dwight went on. “You kill them, I'll radio back to the Sanctuary.”

“The Sanctuary?”

“Where Negan lives,” Dwight said. “That's what they call it. I can radio back to them and say everything's okay. You drive the trucks back, and I can lead you right inside, and, with the right plan, we can wipe out the rest. Check to see if your friend's still alive. Then, we get the workers on our side, build our numbers up, and go from outpost to outpost and end this.”

There was silence, until again, Dad broke it...

“Keep talking.”

And Dwight did, almost all night until Jesus took Maggie, Enid and Judith to Hilltop where they’d be safe for the fight. Dwight started it. _We_ started it. The whole thing. But if he was lying, he was going to die...

If he was lying, we all were.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was Lowlife by X Ambassadors. Thanks Elanyeverywhere, and thanks for the whole playlist you sent too.
> 
> There're only three more chapters of this part left. I'll either end the series there or if season 8 inspires me I'll keep going (probably the latter tbh did you see the trailer fam it looks lit). But this year at uni I'm going to concentrate. I'm not to put studying before fanfiction. I'm not going to get distracted like I did last year. I'm not going to go mad again and I'm not going to use this story as a coping mechanism...
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	132. Season 7 ~ The First Day of the Rest of Your Life: Part 1

**~Carl~**

* * *

 

The next morning, I woke up alone.

I’d fallen asleep with Oliver, but he wasn’t around the house. Not by the lake, or on watch, or even the old alcove or the empty house.

Finally, I found him behind the church, sitting by someone’s grave.

The world had frosted over in the night; just starting to thaw. Birds chirped and the sun was rising over roof-tops.

Oliver was asleep.

I knew he went there sometimes, to the graveyard, but I didn’t know he stayed long enough to fall asleep.

I knelt by his side and placed my hand on his shoulder. He startled.

“Just me,” I said.

He had this small moment of panic, like he wasn’t sure who I was, or like he thought I was somebody else. His breath was fast and shallow and he pushed my hand away, and then he saw me, _me,_ and he calmed down.

“Hey,” I whispered. “You...” He was shivering. I swallowed. “You should come back to the house. You’ll get sick.”

He mumbled something, something like, “I am sick,” except then he sort of pretended he didn’t say that and instead said something else: “I need to find flowers for his grave. The old ones died.”

I looked at the name carved into the wooden headboard.

 _MIKEY LLOYALS  
1995 _ _–_ _2012_

“How long have you been out here?”

Oliver didn’t answer me, just shrugged.

I watched him, and then I said, “We’ll find him flowers. Promise.”

Oliver looked at me then, like he was going to cry.

-I ran my fingertips through his fringe, then let the early breeze blow it all back again. Oliver shivered again so I took off my coat and put it around his shoulders. Oliver reached out to me.

He put his hand on my knee, kept it there for a few seconds, then let go.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “I just really really love you.”

I smiled. I bent down and kissed his forehead and whispered, “ _Al de là,_ Oliver.”

He agreed to come home and sleep for the rest of the morning, but as we were walking back, we heard the trucks approaching Alexandria...

Oliver rubbed his sleepy eyes.

“Is it them already?”

“Junkies. Yeah.”

Brakes squeaked and engines hissed in the distance. We heard the gate pull open, and a whole army of Junkies began setting up around Alexandria. They’d brought bikes and those trash-trucks with the crushers and more people climbed out of them. Michonne and Dad talked with Jadis, who had a long, pale face and straight, shoulder-length, brown hair with grown-out blond ends. Rosita, Aaron and Daryl were wiring up the explosives in a truck parked outside by the burned houses. On the side of the truck, the logo read: _Trust a Move._

* * *

Oliver and I got to work loading our guns and packing ammo, and then we went up onto the guard post next to the front gate, which, three months ago, Noah had extended to stretch all the way along the wall. Aaron, Eric and Scott came and joined us, positioned to our left, along with a few other Junkies and my father who was standing on the far right at the edge beside the gate.

Oliver’s hands were shaking. Earlier, he’d told me that he was nervous. I couldn’t tell if he was nervous in an afraid way or in an excited way.

A Junkie—maybe eighteen or nineteen years old, caught Oliver glance at his cigarette as he lit it with a match. He had long hair tied back in a messy bun. His skin was sun-burned and scarred and rashy, and he had dark circles under his eyes and specks of sweat and dust in the lines along his neck and face and fingers. He looked like he was filled with sand, sort of. That was the colour of him, too; sand. His hair and his eyes and his skin—sand like the sand you find in desserts; so dry the colour is almost gone altogether. Still, in a strange and worn-out way, he was handsome.

I guess I didn’t notice that I was watching him, too, because he caught me, like he had Oliver, and smirked when I turned my head back to the _Trust a Move_ truck. When I snuck another look, he was looking at Oliver again.

Oliver knew it, and looked at him, too.

“Could really use a smoke right now,” he said—like he wasn’t a boy slowly getting a little too into that kind of thing. I didn’t look, but I still saw out the corner of my eye as the Junkie reached into his pocket and held out a pack. Oliver took a cigarette, then asked, “Shoot me up?”

The Junkie did.

He gestured Oliver towards him. Oliver shuffled over, thanking him under his breath with the cigarette between his lips. I watched the ends of their cigarettes press and glow and crackle. The guy kept looking, looking at Oliver’s eyes and Oliver’s mouth and down the front of Oliver’s V-neck. I couldn’t see what Oliver was looking at, but his head was moving a little. And the guy grabbed the back of Oliver’s neck to keep him still. Except something happened. I guess I already knew Oliver didn’t like it when people touched him unexpectedly, but a part of me still didn’t think he’d do what he did next.

Before I knew what happened, Oliver flinched and grunted. He smacked the guy’s arm away and pulled back. The Junkie looked a little taken off guard, and then he smirked, like it was a game. Oliver saw the smirk but he turned away and scowled out over the driveway for a second, and when that second was over he took a long drag that he blew up to the sky.

He shut his eyes.

The Junkie looked past him, at me. I knew so because I was glaring at him. And I kept on glaring at him, so he looked away. I checked Oliver’s face but he didn’t look at me. He just smoked more. The smell made me think of the evenings Carol smoked on the porch next door, the way the breeze would carry the scent up and in through my window. I wondered if he was thinking about those mornings, too.

Oliver squinted out over the driveway as he took another drag, then blew the smoke out of his nose. He put his arm up on his knee and bit his thumbnail. He looked like Daryl like that, a little. It occurred to me how weird it was to want to punch him and also kiss him at the same time. Maybe he noticed, because Oliver set the cigarette on the edge of the wall in front of him. He reached across to me.

He put his hand on my knee, kept it there for a few seconds, then let go.

In my head, I told him _al de la._

And in his head, he heard it.

The Junkie guy made a small scoff at the back of his throat and looked away from us. Oliver ignored him. I didn’t. I was grinning from the inside out while the guy took another drag, grimacing as he put out the cigarette and flicked the butt over the wall.

“We win,” he said.

 _Yeah,_ I thought. _We do._

Oliver picked up his cigarette and smoked.

Just then, a Junkie somewhere sounded an alarm, which was one of those animal-call whistles. Another Junkie somewhere else sounded their own whistle.

The Saviours were coming.

Dad looked over at me and nodded. And then he caught sight of Oliver and double took.

“ _Oliver!_ Put that out.”

Apologising, Oliver snubbed it out and left it by his boot. He blushed, and when I snorted he punched my arm.

Dad turned away.

“Rosita.”

She nodded up to him. She was standing in front of the gate. The bars were shut but the tarp was open to see through.

“Get into position,” Dad told her. “I'll signal you... And the wall's gonna hold?”

“It'll hold.”

A moment later, vehicles were approaching. Three trucks. My heart went to my throat and blocked it. And then all our eyes went wide when we saw the figure standing on the trailer of the first truck.

_“All points are covered...”_

It was Eugene, talking through a megaphone. The truck’s trailer had nothing on the back but him and a large, rectangular crate tied down and covered by rope and a sheet.

 _“Every contingency is already met,”_ Eugene went on. _“I come armed with two barrels of the truth. A test is upon you, and I'm giving out the cheat sheet.”_

I couldn’t believe him.

His truck, driven by some Saviour, parked on the grass in front of the _Trust a Move_ truck. The other two Savour trucks were parked along the driveway.

 _“H-Hello,”_ Eugene said. _“I come salved with the hope that it is my dropped knowledge that you heed. Options are zero to none.”_ He sighed. The sigh sounded scratchy in the megaphone. _“Compliance and fealty are your only escape. Bottom-lining it: You may thrive, or you may die. I sincerely wish for the former, for everyone's sake. The jig is up, and in full effect. Will you comply, Rick?”_

Eugene had turned on us. Just like that? After everything?

“Where's Negan?” Dad ordered.

Eugene put down his megaphone.

And he said it.

He said, “I'm Negan.”

My stomach sank, fell from the post and hit the ground with a splat. Dad’s too. He took a deep breath, then another, and then he looked at Rosita and nodded, and it was over...

_click_

...only it wasn’t.

We’d all ducked, but there was no explosion. There was silence. The _Trust a Move_ truck was still in one piece and guns clicked and before we knew it the Junkies had turned on us too, one barrel aimed at each of our backs.

An old Junkie, Jadis’ right hand man, opened the gate.

Negan stepped out of his truck. He patted Eugene’s back as he stepped down.

The _Trust a Move_ truck was opened and the explosives were disarmed and folded up by Negan’s men.

Dwight looked around.

I wanted to shoot him through the skull.

“You ever hear the one about the stupid little prick named Rick who thought he knew shit but didn't know shit,” Negan asked, “and got _everyone_ he gave a shit about killed?”

He pointed up at Dad.

“It's about you.”

I looked at Oliver. He looked at me, too. He looked horrified. And then the sandy guy dug his gun into the side of his temple and Oliver flinched and had to look down.

“You're all gonna wanna put your guns down now,” Negan said.

“No one drops anything,” Dad urged. He said something to Jadis who was standing behind him with a gun to his head. I only heard the last part of what she said back:

“He made a better deal.”

“You push me, and you push me. _And_ you push me, Rick!” Negan said, hips forward in that way. “You just tried to blow us up, right? I mean, I get me, my people. But Eugene? He's one of _yours_. And after what he did, he stepped _up_. You people are animals. Universe gives you a sign, Rick, and you just...” Negan flipped him off. “ _...shove_ your finger right up its ass.”

Negan laughed.

“Dwight, Simon, chop-chop.”

They climbed up onto the first truck and uncovered the sheet to reveal a coffin. Simon wheeled it back, then stood it up beside Negan on the trailer. He caught a glimpse up at Oliver and double took, but stepped down from the truck when he needed to move out of the way.

“So, you don't like Eugene anymore,” Negan said, Lucille swinging by his calve. “You guys gotta like Sasha. I do, too.”

Lucille knocked on the coffin.

Negan said, “Got her right here packaged for your convenience, alive and well. Now, I brought her so I wouldn't have to kill all of you, and not killing all of you could get complicated. See, I _know_ there's a lot of firepower left in there, Rick. So I'm gonna make this simple.

I want all the guns you've managed to scrape up.  
_Yep_ , I know about those, too.

I want every last grain of lemonade you got left.

I want a person of your own choosing,  
for Lucille.

Daryl— _ooh,_ I gotta get me my _Daryl_ back.  
I see you.

 _And_ the pool table and _all_ the pool cues and chalk.

And I want it _now,_ or Sasha dies, and then all of you. _Probably._

C'mon, Rick.”

I was so angry. _I was so angry._ I felt like I had all the angry in the world built up inside of me and just me and nobody would ever know how angry me and all my angry felt. I’d never tell anybody of my angry. My _pure_ angry. It was mine and mine only.

“Just because I brought her in a casket doesn't mean she has to _leave_ in it.”

Dad said nothing.

“You know what?” Negan asked. “You suck _ass,_ Rick. You _really_ do. I don't want to have to kill her, but that's exactly what you're gonna make me do.”

“Let me see her.”

Negan chuckled. “Oh. Alright. Just give me a second. I might have to get her up to speed. You can't hear _shit_ inside this thing.”

He used Lucille to knock again.

“Sash. You're not gonna believe this crap.”

Negan opened the coffin...and Sasha lunged out at him.

“ _Holy fuck!_ ”

She was growling. She grabbed him, and they fell from the trailer. I didn’t wait. I didn’t want to miss another shot. I didn’t want more people to add to the list of the people I didn’t kill. So I swung around and put a bullet through an old Junkie’s knee, and another through his skull. Oliver followed suit and shot another Junkie through the skull, and another.

I saw the guy from earlier, heavy with adrenaline and sand as he aimed at me. Oliver threw himself at him, and as the Junkie fell from the post, he snatched Oliver’s shirt sleeve and dragged him over, too. I heard their yells. I watched them crash to the ground hard. Oliver screamed. And then they were fighting.

The guy wrestled the gun out of Oliver’s hand and it flung out of reach. He tried to scramble for it but Oliver grabbed him. He hit him. The Junkie hit him back, right across the face. Oliver took another hit and screamed again. I couldn’t shoot down without being sure I would hit my target. And then Scott grabbed my shirt and yanked me out of a spray of bullets.

We shot out at the Saviors. I saw one of my bullets split through someone’s ear and out through the other. Saviors were getting in. Junkies were _already_ in. I peeked over the side to see Oliver and he was getting choked, his gun tangled in his and the Junkie’s hands, and then it went off. I saw the flash, the splatter... the way Oliver’s body jostled and how hard and fast he hit the ground, but I didn’t want to see anything else. I didn’t want to think. So I looked away. I looked away and I shut my eyes and I didn’t think.

Scott and Aaron and Eric were shooting and yelling at me. I didn’t think. Only I did. I thought and I thought and then I had to look. I had to. And I saw. And there was a dead boy lying in the grass.

I don’t remember anything after that, just that then I was down from the watch post. Scott grabbed me as I got there but I shoved past him. My heart stopped. And then it pounded again. It wasn’t Oliver. It was the Junkie. I turned him over onto his back and he wasn’t full of sand anymore but blood. Blood spilling everywhere. Oliver’s knife was lodged in his throat. I yanked it out, blood splashing my palms, and looked around.

“Oliver! _Oliver!_ ”

I had to find him.

I had to find Oliver.

But first I needed cover. Scott fought with me. We hid between the dump-trucks. He dodged under the back and had to stay down when there were too many Saviors. They were rushing in among the Junkies like a flood.

I was alone. I thought of the prison, when I was fighting on my own until I found my father and Oliver. It occurred to me that I might not be that lucky this time.

I heard a creak and almost crapped myself, except I just turned around, and then something hard and heavy crashed into my face.

I don’t think I was out for very long. The next thing I knew, I was opening my eye and the gunfire hadn’t quite ended and I was winded and in pain and laid on my back against something lumpy and shaking. My face throbbed. I looked for Oliver and my father. It was like instinct. And instinct paid off because Oliver was staring down at me.

“Oliver,” I said, and laughed.

My face felt so bruised that smiling ached. Blood was smattered across his cheek and lip and hand and clothes.

“I’m sorry.” He sounded like he was in a lot of pain, and I wasn’t smiling anymore. “I didn’t mean to open the truck door that hard. Carl. Fuck. I—I... I had to hide.”

“Oliver?” I saw that he was bleeding from his right arm. Bleeding bad. “Oliver...” I repeated, only my voice cracked that time. I sat up and pulled his sleeve up. He’d been shot just above his elbow. “Oh no.” I sounded scared. I could tell because Oliver suddenly looked scared, too. “Oliver—shit, your arm.”

“It’s okay,” he gasped, “just a flesh wound.”

“ _That’snotafleshwound._ ”

“My leg,” he insisted. “It’s really bad.”

“What happened? Crap, what’s wrong with it?”

I knew the answer. I was looking right at it. Even through his jeans I could see something was wrong. Very wrong. Oliver’s jeans were cuffed, so I couldn’t roll them up. Instead I took his knife and sliced his jean leg open from the ankle up to the knee.

Oliver’s shin was swollen. A black and purple and red bruise stretched all the way across it and in the centre was a hard lump.

And I touched it— _I don’t know why I touched it I just wanted to make sure it was real and broken and a bone and I couldn’t believe he had been shot and it all happening to him right when I turned my back_ —and Oliver screamed.

“ _Nononodon’tdothat! Please, don’t do that!_ ”

“I’m sorry.” I shuddered. “I’msorry. Crap. _Dammit!_ ”

Oliver looked like he was going to black out. He clutched his arm and blood swelled and dribbled over his fingers.

“Son-of-a-bitch,” he said. His laugh was weak and breathless. “That _rompicoglioni_ shot me up pretty good after all, huh?”

“Shh.” I held his face. I didn’t know what to do. “Shh, hey, hey.” I was crying. “Oliver, I don’t know what to do. Oliver. Oliver, you gotta tell me what to do.”

He just touched my cheek—touched it and smiled and then his eyes shut and his head rolled back and he wasn’t there anymore.

...

.....

..

“Wait,” I said to him. “Wait, Oliver... wait.”

_Wait._

I don’t remember a lot of things after that. I think I remember holding him to my chest. I think I remember that I kept saying his name, “Oliver,” and I kept saying, “wait.” I think I remember crying. _Screaming._ I remember that. I remember yanking off my belt and tying it as hard as I could around the base of his right arm. I remember removing his belt, too, and using it to tie around his left leg. And then I remembered the rest of the world...and someone was standing right over us.

Before I could react, Simon pulled Oliver out of my hands and dropped him away from me. I dove at him, but someone else grabbed my collar and yanked me back. It was a big guy with a grey beanie hat and broad shoulders. He hung me from his fist for a second until I stopped thrashing.

“Knew I recognised this one,” I heard Simon say as he grimaced down at Oliver. He didn’t stir. “Not so smart-mouth now, are you, you little shit.”

He cocked his gun  
and placed the barrel  
to Oliver’s forehead.

“NO!” I fought furiously. I was going to kick and scream. “OLIVER!” I was going to turn into a tsunami. “OLIVER!” I was going to crush and drown every last one of them.

Only that was when Negan strolled around the truck...

“Oh, hoo!”

Lucille swung over his shoulder. He looked at me, and then he looked down at Oliver.

“This. Is. _Interesting.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Similarly to the way Oliver was only supposed to dislocate his shoulder instead of lose a hand in the last book, he was only supposed to sprain his ankle in this chapter, not break a fucking leg... oops.
> 
> "I'd never tell anybody of my angry. My pure angry. It was mine and mine only." was inspired by that quote Carl read to Oliver way back in The Easy Part chapter 13 from Bernard Beckett's August: "He could never tell her of the fear. The perfect fear. That was his alone."
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading (.


	133. Season 7 ~ The First Day of the Rest of Your Life: Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...one chapter left after this...

**~Carl~**

* * *

 

 _Kiss my lips_  
_Feel the rhythm of your heart and hips_  
 _I will pray so the castle that we’ve built won’t cave_

_The secrets you tell me, I’ll take to my grave_   
_There’s bones in my closet, but you hand stuff anyway_   
_And if you have nightmares, we’ll dance on the bed_   
_I know that you love me, love me_   
_Even when I love my head_   
_Guillotine..._

“No way,” Negan said. “No _fucking_ way.”

He looked at me.

“This is him? _The_ Oliver?”

I couldn’t speak.

I didn’t need to.

“Wow. Shit. God fucking _damn._ ”

Negan guided Simon’s gun away from Oliver’s face with his hand. He spent too long staring at him, like he was deciding something, making an important plan.

He looked at Simon.

“And how do _you_ know this kid, Simon?”

“Kingdom,” Simon said, “he’s one of Ezekiel’s.”

Negan’s eyebrows rose up and he looked at me. He gritted his teeth, shook his head, and then he looked at Oliver again.

“He alive?”

Simon gave a confused grunt, but still went ahead and crouched down. He took Oliver’s glasses off and hovered them below his nose. After a few long seconds, the glass steamed up and I remembered how having a soul felt again.

“Yeah,” Simon said. “Kid’s still breathing.” He looked frustrated as he replaced Oliver’s spectacles.

“Alright,” Negan said, “let’s finish up here before lunch. Seems we need to pay our deer Kingdom friends a visit — talk, about why they know this Oliver, and why _they—”_ He pointed at me. _“—_ know this Oliver, too.”

And then he bust out laughing.

“ _This?_ ” he asked. “This is the punk that doesn’t like your moustache?”

Simon pretended to laugh.

“He is.”

Negan leaned back and laughed again, then grinned down at Oliver. “Ahh. I fucking like him. Alright, save your bullets for now,” he said. “Kid’s gonna be useful to me.”

I didn’t understand what that meant.

“Wake him up, would you, Simon?”

“On it.”

Negan got in my face and sneered, like we were friends. I was shaking. I wanted to ask him what he wanted with Oliver, what he wanted with me, but I held my face still and glared at him.

“Ah, this is hilarious,” he said. “I mean, I've heard the expression an eye for an eye, but never an eye for a fucking _hand_. How fucking _creative!_ ”

Oliver hadn’t woken up. Simon tried first to lift his hand, but when he let it go, it dropped with a thud. Next he smacked his face a few times, called out, “Smart-mouth, you in there?”

Oliver didn’t even flinch.

People around us were dead. Saviors and Junkies _and_ Alexandrians— _mostly_ Alexandrians. We hadn’t won. _We hadn’t won._

Simon took a flask from around his waist...

“I’m not much of a scotch man, anyway.”

...and poured it out over Oliver’s face.

“Stop! Stop it,” I muttered, but the muttering died out when Oliver spluttered and gagged.

Negan walked over. Simon sat Oliver up. In a gloved hand, Negan took Oliver’s face and looked at him closely. Oliver could barely keep his eyes open.

“Don’t touch him!”

Negan ignored me.

“It’s nice to meet you, Oliver.” He really meant it. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

I felt my face go cold and flush at the same time. Even with my struggle, the guy gripping my collar was so strong he didn’t even jostle.

Negan looked over his shoulder and grinned at me.

“He’ll be fine, kid. I’m not gonna do anything to him. You, on the other hand...”

Negan let go of Oliver slowly, letting his head rock forward. Simon kept hold of him.

“ _Oh,_ ” Negan said, “yes, siree, Carl. You just worry about yourself. This is gonna be _fun_.”

* * *

**~Oliver~**

* * *

The smell of scotch made me feel sick. Someone picked me up. I screamed. My leg. _My fucking leg._ I was dropped and I screamed again. Carl was saying my name. Simon was cursing. He talked to Negan for a second. They were saying things like, “Shit, it’s broken; the shot’s pretty bad too,” and, “Alright, let’s make this quick. Carson’ll take care of it at home, give us some time to plan how to _confront_ good ol’ Ezekiel, too,” and I couldn’t do anything except hold my leg at the knee and bite back more screams.

Negan had Carl under his arm. He’d struggle and look at me but there wasn’t a lot he could do. And then I was being pulled to move by Simon and the buff guy with the beanie. My legs tripped and scuffed and I cried out until my tongue bled. My arm was bleeding too. Blood had already soaked down past my bandage. I was leaving drip-trails. I didn’t want to go with them. I didn’t. And as much as I didn’t want to die, I knew I’d still rather it over whatever Negan meant by _“Carson’ll take care of it at home”_.

Carl muttered, “Dad...” and I looked, too. Rick was laid motionless in the grass by the gate. Jadis was standing over him. She nudged him with her foot and Rick stirred. He was shot. Like me.

“He’ll be alright,” Jadis said, “just give him a minute.”

Negan nodded, then took us across the community. They knelt Carl and I down beside each other in the grass across from the lake. The scotch was stinging my eyes and inside my nose and I kept coughing and gagging. I couldn’t keep on my knees. I had to slump on my butt and keep myself steady with my hand. My leg was thrumming.

Dwight just _watched._

“Oliver,” Carl whispered. “Oliver...”

I couldn’t lift my head. I just whispered back, “Shh,” but Negan had already noticed us and Lucille turned and stopped in front of my nose. I felt a barb against my forehead, brushing my hair out of my eyes. I jerked away and told him to get fucked, except the words didn’t leave me because I had to clutch my arm.

“Ohh,” Negan said. He grinned. “Right, right. Almost forgot.” He bent down and looked at me. His eyes dropped to my bullet wound—no, to my amputation. He tilted his head. My bandage had started unravelling.

Negan took two fingers and began to pull it off.

I swatted his hand away.

Negan chuckled.

“Goddamn,” he said, pulling the bandage away from me, “so, Prick chopped it off you instead as a peace offering for me? Sweet. Sweetest Goddamn thing I’ve heard all fucking day.”

My face folded up into a wince and I gritted my teeth, hoping I looked more angry than in pain.

“Guess what, kids?” Negan said. He leant down between us and whispered, “ _It’s not enough._ ”

I just stared at him. Not at his face or his bat. Just his scarf. I was thinking about the colour red and why it was my favourite when I'd seen all the places and people in my life that had spilled the very same red over my bare hands. I could see Negan's face and I could see his bat but I couldn’t see _him_. It was like I was in a nightmare. _No face. Just a dark scribble._

“Jesus,” he said to me. “Your stink-eye’s almost as bad as his.”

I saw more red, smelt and tasted it too, heard its sirens in my ears and leg and felt the wet of it running down my arm; the colour infected all of my senses.

Negan’s eyebrows hopped. He examined my face. My arm. All my scars.

“Bet there are some neato stories behind those, huh, kiddo?” he asked. I bit my tongue. Negan stopped smiling. He looked at Simon, like he was disappointed. “Did I or did I not just hear you call him, in your words, a _‘smart-mouth little shit’_?”

Simon shrugged.

Negan shrugged back, mocking him.

“Kid doesn’t speak,” he complained. “What the hell you doin’ calling him ‘smart-mouth’ when he won’t even _open_ his mouth?”

“Trust me, this one’s full of surprises,” Simon assured.

“Well,” Negan said slowly, turning to me, “I _am_ waiting, young man.”

I glared at him. I could feel my eyes welling. Angry and in pain and afraid. I hated that. I hated that I couldn’t help the crying. Not then. Not when I was that helpless. I put my hand up to grip the bullet wound. I could feel the amputation scar, the parts of it that stretched up that far from where Denise’s hands had slipped during my struggle in the cauterisation. Negan wouldn’t stop looking at me. _Nobody_ would stop looking at me.

I wiped my face, felt blood and tears all mixed up.

“You gotta be kidding me,” Negan tutted. He scoffed and threw his hands up. “Here I go again, making another kid cry. _Jesus_... _fucking_... _Chri—_ ”

And I spit right at his face.

Negan reeled back, grunting. For a second, while he wiped his eye, he was turned away from me. He cursed, _loud_. I knew what was going to happen to me next. I knew I’d fucked up. I knew I’d done the same thing as what I’d done in the slaughterhouse to Molly, only this time I knew I was about to die for it. Carl knew, too, because he was already muttering, “Please, please.”

But it was too late.

“ _Shit!_ ” Negan growled. _“_ Wow, you _are_ full of surprises... Guess what, you little fucker, so am I.”

And then he was turning around. With a roar, he raised Lucille above his head and then he brought her down on me. I shut my eyes. There was a scream. I waited for impact. But seconds passed and I was heaving and still alive and waiting waiting waiting.

I peeked.

Lucille was staring at me, bearing her silver teeth.

I looked past her. At Negan. His eyes looked strange, like something was suddenly freaking him out, like when I’d notice a spider in the shower or something.

He looked next to me, to Carl, who was sobbing.

“Please... please, no, d-don't! _Please!_ Pl—”

“What the _fuck?_ ” Negan said.

Even I was looking at Carl. I was looking at him and wishing he would shut up, wishing he wouldn’t do that. _Don’t cry. Don’t cry! Don’t let your guard down no we’re letting our guard down!_

Carl screamed, “Please don’t hurt him! Please! _PLEASE!_ ”

Very slowly, Negan put his head back and groaned. Over the fog in my brain, I got this terrible feeling like he was having the time of his life.

“Ah! Well, that's just precious,” he said. “My little heart is _breaking!_ ”

The guy holding Carl let go and he collapsed to his hands and knees.

Negan knelt in front of him, crouching to look him in the eye.

“I _do_ believe I’ve found your Achille’s fucking heel, Carl.”

Carl bit his mouth. He was dribbling and had to wipe his face. I wanted to shove him and tell him to quit it. _Quit it, man! Stop that, please!_ Only I was crying too. I’d never seen him like this. Not once. I hated that it was my fault. It was my fault and there wasn’t anything I could do to help it.

We watched Negan stroll away from us, and then Rick was coming over. He stopped when he saw me and his son. Carl sat up again and tried to compose himself, and Rick was going to call out, but Jadis jabbed him in the side and made him kneel beside us.

Negan stepped through the crowd of Saviors and Junkies, Lucille perched on his shoulder.

“Hello again.”

Saviors were yelling at people around Alexandria. Some of us were dead and laying along the streets, and others were barely holding on. I wondered if I was. I wondered if I was dying. I felt tired and cold and like I had a bad flu and I couldn’t feel my right arm or left leg anymore. I didn’t see Michonne but I knew she was up on the brownstone roof. She could shoot down at Negan right now. Why hadn’t she? Why? I felt sick. I wanted to know where everybody was. I wanted my family.

“Well, shit, Rick,” Negan was saying. “You just couldn't stick with us, huh? You had to go with these... _filthy_ garbage people? No offense.”

I didn’t look at Jadis. I already knew she was indifferent. I knew she was standing there behind us, watching in her smug way with her long, bagged face.

“Deal is for twelve, yes?” she asked.

“Ten,” Negan said. “People are a resource.”

There was gunfire somewhere on the west side. My arm and leg were throbbing.

“Ten,” Jadis relented.

Negan chuckled, then sighed.

“Rick. This is just gonna make you sad. Broken. You're gonna _wish_ you were dead. You too, Oliver. Then again, maybe this’ll teach you some damn manners.” He jostled my shoulder as he walked around us. I wanted to flinch but I just dipped my head and tried to wish us all away from here.

Negan chuckled.

“I like having fun,” he explained, “I do. But maybe you think that the guy that did what he did to your friends... wasn't me, like that was some sort of a put-on, like I'm not the guy with the bat—I'm just the guy that makes your kid spaghetti. I’m the guy who takes a fucking _loogie_ in the face from four-eyes here, and lets him keep his heartbeat.”

More gunfire.

“Oh,” Negan grinned. “Oh, fuck. Maybe this is on me. Maybe this is _all_ on me. I gotta make it right. I guess I gotta start _all_ over again. I gotta tell you, Rick, if I had a kid, I'd want him to be _just_ like your kid, which makes this _so_ much harder.”

I was scared.

Not Carl.

_Not Carl._

“You're not gonna win,” he growled.

“Carl,” Negan told him. “It is over. Now, listen, don’t take it personally. I don’t _wanna_ replace you, but your daddy here’s given me no choice, see? So why don't you point your one _ball_ up the street there, and take everything in?”

He did. Carl looked up the street and then he looked at me. He looked at me and I felt so guilty. I didn’t understand what was happening. I didn’t understand how Negan was making all of this make sense in his head, and then — and then there was this scream in the distance and a dark figure fell from the brownstone roof. I remember just... _staring._ I remember thinking it wasn’t happening. I remember thinking this was all just another nightmare; any minute I’d wake up and go sit on Jesus’ porch and watch Daryl while he smoked and talked to me about Carol, all pent up and _angrysad_ even though we’d never talk about why.

“Ohh.” Negan laughed. He knelt in front of Rick. “ _Oh._ Wow. You just lost somebody important to you right now—like, _just_ now. _Fuck._ That. Is. _Timing._ Well, Rick, you chose this. I truly don't know what more I could've done to warn you. And this isn't a warning. This is punishment.

I'm gonna kill Carl now.

I'm gonna make it one, nice, _hard_ swing; try to do it in one because I _like_ him.

I just want you to put that in your brain and roll it around for a minute.”

It was in my brain, rolling around— _blitzing_ it. I felt Carl’s hand, our two little fingers locked. It was hard to tell who was shaking worse. Negan grinned at this, then turned to Rick and kept talking.

“I'm gonna kill Carl, and then Lucille here, she's gonna take your hands, and _then_ your boy’s achey-breaky, handicap, little, boyfriend _Oliver_ is gonna come with me. I’ll even let you keep Daryl as fair trade. One of mine for one of yours. How about that?”

“You can do it right in front of me,” Rick said. I wasn’t listening. Not really. Words were coming in but I didn’t understand them right away. “You can take my hands. I told you already—I'm gonna kill you. All of you. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but _nothing_ is gonna change that— _nothing_.”

And then Rick was whispering.

“ _You're all already dead._ ”

Negan looked mad. I remember that. He looked like a human grenade. He’d lost his pin... only then, somehow, he just put it back in again.

He giggled.

“Fuck,” he sighed. “ _Wow, Rick..._ Okay.”

Negan got up.

“You said I could do it.”

Carl’s hat was knocked off his head and I felt it bump my chest as it fell. I saw his face, Carl’s, all twisted up and then and then _and then_ I died. And died. And I died. I died for all the times I was going to have to think about this moment. All the million, billion, trillion times for the rest of my life—all the ten seconds I would have left of it because I knew I wasn’t going to make this. Not this. I was going to die and keep on dying forever and always and I would never come back from it. And then there was a scream. It lived inside my chest. It was the goblin and it was alive and it was escaping and I was going to die _die **die**_ for it, and I did. I really did. It split me into shards and leapt out of my chest in a roar, landing hard and heavy and orange and black against a Saviors’ chest. Teeth sunk into skull and crushed it like an egg. And I was in one piece, not a living roar; the roar hadn’t even come from me. It was Shiva. She tore into a Savior’s chest and pulled out his ribcage.

Somebody screamed. A lot of people did. Carl staggered against me. It hurt. I thought I was holding him but it was him who was holding me. My arms weren’t working. My leg felt like a hurricane inside skin and bone and sinew. Carl gripped around my chest and held me and held me and held me, and we saw soldiers on horseback, galloping and shooting and slashing, and more soldiers ran alongside them. I saw their flags, the tiger symbol sewn into red and gold, and then I saw the King, gun raised and the whole universe alive and electric inside his face and dreadlocks.

“END THESE SAVIORS AND THEIR ACCOMPLICES!  
ALEXANDRIA WILL NOT FALL, NOT ON THIS DAY!”

Gunfire split the air apart. People were screaming and running. And then Maggie and Enid and the rest of Hilltop were sprinting through Alexandria.

“Phalanx out, third group, now!” Maggie ordered.

“Move up!” Daryl too. “Now, we got your backs!”

Rick grabbed mine and Carl’s collars and pulled us up. I remember the pain. Everywhere. I felt sick. I couldn’t hold my gun when Rick shoved it into my hand. I couldn’t walk. And then Shiva flew past me and Carl, and Rick yelled for us.

They were shooting. Carl and Rick. And they were grabbing under my arms to keep me standing and I kept making these noises, “No, no, no,” begging them to stop the hurting. I remember that I saw something purple streak through the day-sky, and then the streets filled with smoke and the Junkies were running away. The Saviors too. Gunshots were still cracking the air open, and then I was dragged to the RV. Maggie was there. Jesus and Enid and Bertie, too. Shit, I could hardly stay conscious. Rick and Carl were clutching around my middle so hard I couldn’t breathe. My head felt like rock in water, _sinking_.

“They're falling back!” Rick told us.

“Oliver...” Enid said. “Oliver your... You’re...”

I tried to say I was fine but I threw up right there in front of everybody. Carl yelped for his Dad, who had let go of me to check around the side of the RV. Rick rushed over and took under my arm again and I threw up all down his shirt.

“M’sorry,” I murmured.

Rick just held me. He held me like that day in the slaughterhouse, like I was really little and young and scared. I wanted to hide in his chest and stay there until the hurting went away.

“Dad,” Carl said, and I think I must’ve said it too because Rick looked at me, then he looked at Carl because he was still talking. “Dad, we gotta get him to the clinic.” Carl was talking fast and Rick was talking back faster, and my brain was pounding so it was hard to understand much else.

Maggie was yelling things, and then she and the others were gone again. The King was shouting somewhere in the distance. “Now! We finish this!” And then there was more shooting. God, I wished they would let go of me. I wished they would just leave me there. I didn’t have it in me to go any further. But I felt Rick and Carl’s hands grabbing and pulling and even though I would cry out and try to give up, they wouldn’t let me. I heard Rick talking about Michonne, and then we were at the brownstone apartments. There was a body splattered across the sidewalk and horror woke me up for a second...only it wasn’t Michonne. _It wasn’t Michonne._ It was another Junkie.

We went inside.

I couldn’t make it up the staircase so I sat on the steps while Rick and Carl hurried up to find her. I heard Rick’s voice, all quiet and shaken: “Michonne,” he said, “Michonne. Oh, you're alive.” And her voice back: “We—W-We're... We're...” “I know. I know. I know. We are. We will.”

I knew I was dying then.

I just knew it.

Carl came downstairs first. I don’t remember a lot of what he said or a lot of what happened after but I know I felt heavy and cold. I remember that he was saying my name and that it was hard to say his name back. I was sweating and bleeding and hurting. I remember Michonne’s face, at some point. It was bloody and bruised and her left eye was swollen shut. Rick was holding her, and he was also trying to hold me too, and then I fell and the whole world was falling away from me as well, and I was becoming lost all over again.

I didn’t like that feeling.

I didn’t like it and I couldn’t stop it.

So, I lost.

Lost,  
...and lost,  
......and lost.

❂:❂:❂:❂  
_‘Cause it’s a long life_  
and then it isn’t.  
❂:❂:❂:❂

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was Guillotine by Jon Bellion. Thanks ando aka Andy Tweed.
> 
> Happy reading.


	134. Season 7 ~ A Lost Boy

_Left my home still as a child_  
_I walked a thousand sorry miles_  
_To wait for my father, to gather up his tools_

_He said, “My boy, you’ve gotta run,_  
_Don’t wait for me, don’t wait for mum,_  
_We’ll come get you, when it’s safe for us to move”_

_So I waited many years_  
_Held back the pain behind my tears_  
_For my father, to come find me like he said_

_And in that time I was alone_  
_So many years without my home_  
_I made brothers of a different kind instead..._

* * *

 

**~Carl~**

* * *

I knelt in the grass and placed the small, un-neat bouquet of wild flowers down on the grave in front of me.

"There,” I whispered, “promise kept.”

Enid was standing behind me.

“Think he’ll like them?” I asked her.

“Yeah,” she said softly. “I think he will.”

I stood and stepped back from the grave, sighing and nodding. Enid took my hand.

“Come on,” she whispered.

“Where are we going?”

She smiled at me.

“Nowhere.”

* * *

**~Oliver~**

* * *

When I was really little, Patrick told me that when we died, we’d either go to Heaven or Hell—this all _before_ he became a Practicing Atheist. “Mamma told me,” he said. He said we’d walk up a big flight of golden stairs to some tall pearly gates and God and one of his angels would ask us questions, and then they’d either send us to Hell or allow us through into Heaven.

“I don’t want to go to Hell,” I’d told him. And I cried.

“You won’t,” he’d said. “Hell’s for bad people. Mamma said we’re good. So we’ll get to go to Heaven.”

I never knew if I believed it. Not really. Or if I did, I was afraid of it. I didn’t know if I was a good person. I didn’t know if God and his angel would let me into Heaven. But I liked to imagine that when I died, I’d wind up somewhere I knew, at least, somewhere I felt safe, and the people I loved would be there to make me feel better. I figured the universe could spare me that much. Yeah. I figured that would be enough. But another part of me thought that was stupid. Another part of me thought that when you died, there wouldn’t be anything at all, you’d just... _not_ anymore.

I figured that was what was happening to me, except I was thinking about it, and something about that and being dead didn’t make much sense, so I decided to try opening my eyes, and that’s how I wound up waking up at the clinic.

Morgan was there. And Rosita, asleep in the hospital bed opposite me. I saw my prosthetic over on my bedside. Something was attached to my arm though, so I looked, saw a sling. My leg, too, was raised by a bigger sling above the bed, wrapped in bandage and what looked like home-made cast. Things were written on it but everything was blurry so I couldn’t read. My head felt light and heavy and achy at the same time.

Someone said, “Shh,” and then pushed something over my face, my glasses, and I could see better. Carol was leaning over me, placing her palm against my forehead and coaxing me to lie back again.

I looked and looked at her and then I was crying. I wasn’t sure why at first, only I was. There were so many reasons to cry. But out of them all I decided on one and said, “Where’s Sasha?”

“In the ground,” Morgan answered. “Held her funeral two days ago.”

I blinked and wiped my face.

Morgan had his hands clasped and his elbows rested next to me on the mattress. Nobody was saying anything, so I said, “Where is everybody?”

Morgan smiled and said, “Around.”

I took his word for it. It was easy to take Morgan’s word for things. I looked at what he was wearing.

“Ben give you his armour?” I asked.

Morgan’s face did this weird falling thing then.

“Something like that, yeah,” he said, almost breathing it.

I smirked and looked around, “Where is he? I gotta give back some stuff.” Only I stopped talking when Morgan put his head in his hands. I just looked at him for a really long time. It felt like centuries. And then, after all those centuries, I just said, “Oh. Okay.”

I looked at my hand, and then across to my sling, my cast-up leg, things written on it like:

_‘hi, from enid’_

_‘C.J. GRIMES WAS HERE’_

_‘Get well soon little dude.  
Love from Jerry xx’ _

_‘I Wish You A Swift Return To Full Health, Young Warrior._  
_– K.E_  
_( & S xx) My Apologies. Jerry Wrote That.’_

_‘Tara loves you like yoyos and strawberry sundaes’_

_‘FROM A FRIEND, aka. Aaron and Eric’_

_‘Michonne xo  
AND RICK’_

_‘Praying for your recovery – F G’_

I felt my face frown and flush. It’s strange, the things that run through your head when you realise that someone you care about is dead. You’d think the first thing you feel is sad, and I guess it’s true, but it’s other things too like confusion and anger, almost at them sometimes—I don’t know why. I was trying to think of all the reasons Ben couldn’t die. I made a list in my head:

1\. I told him I’d see him around.  
2\. I had to give him back his tin.  
3\. I had to show him my home.  
4\. And I had to thank him for everything he didn’t even know he’d done for me.

But none of that was going to happen, and I was disgusted.

“Was the Saviors,” Morgan explained. “Day after you left.” I don’t remember a lot of what else he said, something about a cantaloupe and that Richard was dead too and that Benjamin’s death was what changed Ezekiel’s mind about helping us fight, and then after a while, Morgan was quiet.

I thought about how Benjamin meant a lot to him, how he meant a lot to me, and for similar reasons. Ben reminded us of our family, the family that died when we weren’t there to do something to stop it. I just don’t think Morgan and I were very good at being reminded of our family.

I felt all out of shape, like Ray said, and then I started to cry again—to really really _cry_. I thought the noise was something outside the room, like Shiva, but then I realised it had to have been me because I could hardly breathe.

I held my face and wailed.

Morgan just touched my wrist and said, “I know, shh. I know, I know,” until I stopped.

Carol was still sitting beside me on the chair. I could have asked her why she came back, why she wasn’t running anymore too, but I didn’t say anything. She didn’t either. Instead, as I laid down and tried to sleep, she just combed her fingers through my hair, like she would, and I let her.

* * *

Later in the evening, the sun was starting to fall asleep all pink and purple and blue across Alexandria’s sky.

My body was weak and my head and arm ached, but mostly my leg just hurt from walking all the way to the graveyard. Although it was bearable with the meds and Carl and Enid supporting me.

They’d put flowers on Mikey’s grave for me. And Carl found me a beanie hat, a grey one almost identical to my old one—said he took it off some dead Savior. Enid had her knife back, too—said she took it off the same dead Savior.

The three of us went home. We sat out on the porch. I sat in the rocking chair while Carl and Enid sat over on the steps. Enid was playing with an uninflated green balloon between her fingers. We talked about the meeting in Alexandria that’d taken place the evening of the fight. Ezekiel, Rick and Maggie had all spoken, representing the Kingdom, Alexandria, and Hilltop.

“Things are going to change,” Enid said. Her voice was soft, like the breeze. “Nobody really knows what’s going to happen anymore. Then again, nobody really knew before.”

“We’re gonna fight,” Carl mumbled. “We know that much.”

“Yeah...”

“But that won’t be it,” I said to them. “I mean, it’s gonna suck. And we’ll lose people, but you said it before, right? Nobody’s ever really gone. Not if they live on inside you.”

I got up. Carl asked if I needed help but I shook my head while I hobbled over and sat with them carefully, and together we looked out at the community for a minute.

“We’ll fight,” I said, like I was admitting it. “But do you know what else?”

They both looked at me.

I smiled. “We’re going to win.”

We didn’t talk much more after that. Enid just put her head on Carl’s shoulder and Carl took my hand. And after everything, lost boy or not, I knew then that I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of Part Three: Lost Boy
> 
> Song was The Lost Boy by Sons of Anarchy.
> 
> Thank you infinitely for sticking through this bullshit. Next chapter up some time after the season premier. 
> 
> As always,  
> Happy reading.


	135. Season 8 ~ Mercy: Sorry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beginning of Part Four: One Day
> 
> Beginning of Season 8.

Oliver hobbled across the driveway, grunting and struggling as he finally managed to make it to the eagle truck. He sat in the back, catching his breath, and under his palm on the cool metal floor, he saw the old blood-stain; thinking of how it got there made him put his stump in his hoodie pocket.

A small shuffling noise caught his attention and as he glanced over his shoulder, he startled. “Mio Dio!”

Carl was watching him through the rear-view mirror from the driver’s seat, silent.

“Jesus, man...” Oliver blew out through his mouth, clutching his chest. “I — I thought you were inside with the others.”

Carl pressed his lips together, his thigh making that shuffling noise against the seat as his leg rocked side-to-side.

“Sucks you can’t come with,” he said.

Oliver shrugged. “Your dad’s just looking out for me, until I—”

“‘Till you can walk again,” Carl said, “yeah, I know.” There was quiet for a minute, until he kept talking. “I’m only scouting. You could just... sit here, keep me company.”

Oliver’s eyes rolled and he grinned.

“Yeah, yeah,” Carl relented. He got out and walked around the truck. Oliver stood before he got to him, aware of the terrible squishy sensation in his shin when he put weight into his left foot. He steadied his crutch under his left arm and set his back straight and tall. Still, Carl was taller; Oliver was beginning to accept that this was likely not going to change anymore.

“Don’t like the wheelchair Ezekiel brought?”

Oliver made an _eh_ noise.

“Want me to go get it for you?”

“No,” Oliver said, “no, I’ll get it.”

“Okay.” Carl looked like he wanted to say something else, but in the end just touched the back of Oliver’s fist (which was gripping his crutch handle) and flicked their thumbnails, then got back in the truck. “See you later, man.”

Oliver nodded to himself, starting back towards the house.

“Hey!” Carl called out. Oliver stopped to look at him, wobbling a bit on the first step. Carl was leaning out the window. “Sure you don’t want help?”

Oliver snorted and kept walking, telling Carl, “Catch you later, young sir,” as he heard him start-up the engine.

“Yep,” Carl said, and drove away.

The weeks following were more or less the same as this. Every morning, Alexandria would wake up early to join Hilltop and the Kingdom in preparation for war against the Saviors; Rick, Maggie and Ezekiel would rally their people, build weapons, collect information and so on. Daryl would infiltrate enemy look-outs. And Tara and Carol would collect the herd. Even Carl had scouts and scavenging runs; looking for gas and anything else he could find. But Oliver? He babysat. Rested. With a diagnosis of _‘one gunshot wound to the right bicep’_ , _‘a left-sided fibula fracture and medial tibia dislocation’_ along with the good old _‘you’re already a handicap, dude, sit the hell down!’_ all finally summing up to a generous healing time of anything between five to seven months... _minimum_. It was miserable, really, but he was alive at least, and still had three out of four limbs even if only two of them were fully functional. The worst news was that he would likely not even heal properly. At best, he would have nothing more than a limp for the rest of his life and a bad case of arthritis as he got older; the Kingdom had a good doctor, but not the specific equipment needed for his surgery. The only place that _did_ have these things was the Sanctuary... which was the very thought Oliver was agitating himself over the morning the war began.

One redeeming fact to him was that he was not the only person staying behind. Rosita was still recovering from her gunshot wound, and Michonne stayed for Carl, who also had to stay. Oliver could see them, Carl and Michonne, outside seeing off everybody else. Oliver was inside, sitting in his wheelchair (which he’d aptly named Dick), figuring it best to keep out of everybody’s way—also figuring he was probably just feeling sorry for himself, but at least nobody had to know about it.

He watched Rick kiss Judith, then Michonne, and then he took Carl’s hat off, hugged him, then put the hat back. “This is the end of it,” he said. He got in his car—armoured with metal sheets along the left-side, and drove away. Michonne and Carl talked for a minute, until she bumped his shoulder, then walked away.

Oliver wheeled himself back into his room; which was now on the ground floor to avoid any extra staircase use. A minute or two later, Carl came inside to find him lying horizontally across the single bed, out of breath after only just managing to get into this position, with his cast leg rested up on the desk chair. Music was playing from his stereo.

“Weird Al, again? Really?”

“Ovviamente!” Oliver replied, stretching his head backwards so his hair flopped up and his glasses sat too high on his face. “It’s good for you. Reduces stress and all that other junk.”

“You say that about all your music.”

“That’s because it’s true,” Oliver said, grunting as he sat up a little. He reached out. Carl touched his hand and did that thumb-flick thing as he sat on the bed with him.

“You stressed?” he asked.

Oliver shrugged.

“Worried, guess.”

"Yeah, guess me too," Carl confessed. There was quiet. They were looking at each other. Oliver decided to sit up and kiss him. Carl grinned at him. "What was that for?"

"Stress relief," Oliver said.

"Thought we had your music."

"Well, I mean, if you'd prefer us to just sit here and listen to some, that's fine, too."

"No," Carl blurted, then laughed at himself. Calmer, he said, "No, man. You should totally kiss me like that again."

"Okay."

_There's a suitcase poking me in the ribs_   
_There's an elbow in my ear_   
_There's a smelly old bum standing next to me_   
_Hasn't showered in a year_   
_Well, I think I'm missing a contact lens_   
_I think my wallet's gone_   
_And I think this bus is stopping again_   
_To let a couple more freaks get on, look out_

_Another one rides the bus_   
_Another one rides the bus..._

* * *

Sometime later that afternoon, Carl sat up and checked the alarm clock on Oliver's bedside. "Dammit," he said, "I'm late."

Oliver was reading a book, curled up on his side, and looked at Carl over his shoulder. He was rushing around the room, gathering his things. "Late for what?"

"A thing." Carl yanked on an old flannel shirt.

Oliver sat up and pointed to his wheelchair. "Dick, please?"

Carl pushed it over and helped him in, but left him to put on his boots. Once he had, Oliver leaned over to look in Carl's orange duffel bag; being filling with various things Carl would take with him for any regular scout.

“You already went out today,” Oliver said, popping some pain pills.

“It’s just an errand.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“Not long. Just dropping something off.”

Oliver watched Carl rush around the room, and then, all of a sudden, he dumbed his orange duffel into Oliver’s lap, took Dick’s handles, and pushed Oliver out of the bedroom.

“Whoa, wait, what are you doing?”

“You’re coming with.”

Oliver twisted around as he was pushed through the living room. Carl looked serious.

“But your dad—”

“Isn’t here.” Carl stopped at the front door, put the duffel over his shoulder, and helped Oliver to his feet. “You in?”

“What if Michonne finds out?”

“She’ll be on my side.”

“She will?”

“Yes,” Carl said, under Oliver’s arm as they descended the porch steps.

“And me?”

“ _You..._ just gotta sit in the truck.”

Oliver smirked. “Keep you company?”

“Yeah,” Carl grinned. “Keep me company.”

Next thing Oliver knew, he was waiting in the eagle truck’s passenger seat while Carl came back from the pantry with two cans in hand, which he stuffed among his duffel things. He got in. He started up. And he drove.

Twenty minutes away from Alexandria, Carl slowed as he came up to an old gas station. According to him, he’d driven here the same morning: “Some guy called me out,” he said. “Said he’d been shot at. That, someone threw a microwave at’m.”

Oliver’s eyebrows went up.

“Told me something his mom used to say,” Carl went on, weaving the truck through some neglected cars. “ _‘Whatever you have of good, spend on the traveller,’_. He said, _‘Helping — that's everything,’_.” He shrugged. “Dunno, just thought it was a neat thing to say.”

“He say anything else?” Oliver asked.

Carl thought, and then said, “ _‘May my mercy prevail over my wrath.’_. From the Quran or something.”

“He was Muslim?”

Carl parked. “Either way, Dad drove him off before I could help him, so...” Oliver watched Carl grab a piece of old magazine from the glovebox, tear out a page, and write the word _‘SORRY’_ across it.

He was only gone for a minute before he returned with two less cans in his possession and a satisfied smirk on his face.

“Done,” he said, and kissed Oliver once on the forehead.

“Home?” Oliver asked.

“Home,” Carl said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was Another One Rides the Bus by Weird Al Yankovic. Thanks to my flatmate PinePitch for the help on diagnosing and writing Oliver’s broken leg.
> 
> Finna write this shit in past-tense/close-third-person from now on I think but I’ll probably change my mind as I go look fam boi amigo let me be and just read if you want thanks a million also I dunno if it’s weird that I’m using Oliver/Patrick/Carl crossover-throw-backs or whatever (“Catch you later, young sir.”) but I’m heckin doin it anyway.
> 
> Happy reading.


	136. Season 8 ~ The King, the Widow, and Rick, Part 1: Radio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Facetime, but... without the face, or the time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Lack of chapters is not my fault twd ain’t throwin me no bones this year also gonna reply to comments in PMs now to lower word count but I’ll still answer questions in notes occasionally

“Are you there? Hey, you there? Come _on_ , it’s me.” Oliver had received nothing but static from his portable CB radio for fifteen minutes now. He checked his wristwatch, then checked it again. He sat back in Dick and held his breath.

“Maybe she’s still helping the others?” Barbra said from the table across the room, wrestling Judith over where her porridge was supposed to go: Judith’s mouth, or Barbra’s hair.

Oliver checked his watch again. He didn’t say so (he was still holding his breath), but Enid and Maggie should’ve gotten back to Hilltop hours ago. Anxious, he tapped his radio. He’d been gifted it by Ezekiel, along with Dick. “Lani wishes for you to keep in contact. Use it wisely, young warrior.” So he did. Unfortunately, the Kingdom was out of range. But the Hilltop wasn’t, and after a few days of talking to Enid, Oliver began recognising other voices. Saviors. Nothing from the Sanctuary (it and Kingdom were almost next-door neighbours) but the range was catching closer outposts. With this secret advantage, Oliver’d been able to confirm that Dwight, who was still slipping Daryl information, had been telling the truth all along. It was crucial, finding this, and just about the only thing making Oliver feel useful enough not to go insane.

“Try to distract yourself,” Barbra said in his silence, “and _breathe,_ for Christ’s sake.” He did. Barbra gave him a disapproving look, then handed him an orange, beady-eyed, little kitten (Judy had taken to calling it Birds). “Here,” she insisted.

Oliver resigned himself to uselessness and set Birds on his lap. At five weeks old, Scab’s kittens had become a lot more adventurous and independent. Only three had lived this far; Tara said it had to have been some kind of syndrome or fever that killed the other five.

Another dusty-coloured kitten came along (Judy called him Full Clip, after a particularly long day in the armoury last week). Oliver had to pry Full Clip off Dick’s left wheel in his attempt to join his sibling.

Finally, Barbra unstuck porridge and honey from her hair and released Judith from the highchair, all while Oliver wheeled himself towards the front door. It was difficult with one hand; he had to push one wheel at a time, doing his best to avoid bumping anything with his leg, as well as keeping the radio station on his lap and trying to stop Full Clip and Birds from climbing his shoulders. In the end, Barbra took pity and pushed him out onto the porch herself.

“Thanks,” he said, trying to mean it, trying to put the kittens down—they seemed to be experts at taking advantage of his debilities, clinging to all the places he couldn’t reach. He wished he could use his prosthetic, but that wasn’t happening until his arm healed.

“Do you need anything else?” Barbra asked.

“No,” Oliver said, “no, I’m fine.”

She hovered. _Everybody_ hovered, even the kittens. Oliver waited for her to go back inside, then waited some more for his face to cool down, poking Birds to distract her from eating his hair. Finally, Oliver started switching through channels for any noise. There shouldn’t have been much by now, with how busy the Saviors would be defending the Sanctuary. Thankfully, the world within twenty-five miles was empty with static. There was a faint whisper somewhere between channel eighty and eighty-seven (probably someone in a closer outpost—the guys Alexandria had to keep on the defence for while the others were gone, just in case) but Oliver couldn’t decipher anything, so he switched to forty-nine and retried for Enid.

“Hey...” They couldn’t use names: one of the many rules they followed to have Rick’s blessing to use them, as well as never sharing any information. “Are you there? Are you there? Are you—”

Static startled him.

_“Here, here. I’m here! Sorry, my range sucks.”_

“It’s okay. Did—” Suddenly, Dick jolted. Oliver realised it was only Rosita, sitting in the porch rocking chair behind him. She kicked him again.

“Wheel your butt over here,” she said, “wanna listen.” Rosita wasn’t a hoverer. Oliver appreciated this. Strategically, he used his toe to push Dick closer to her. She took both kittens. Oliver returned focus to the radio.

“So, did you eat today?” This was code for: _Any updates?_ If Enid listed things that tasted nice, progress involving the war was going well. If she listed anything gross, it was bad.

 _“Not yet. Baking apple pie,”_ she said. _“Now we’re just waiting to see how it turns out.”_

Oliver sighed, nodding to let Rosita know it was good news.

“Cool. And, how are you?” This wasn’t code for anything. It was just his question.

 _“I’m okay,”_ Enid said, _“little tired.”_ Her voice was soft despite the way the radio cracked it up a little; it made Oliver miss her like crazy.

“You’re working hard,” he said, “you know, baking... and everything.”

 _“Yeah...”_ The static came back for a second as she let go of the PTT button. There was so much to say, but nothing safe enough to say aloud. It was depressing as hell, really. Still, somehow Enid could always think of something: _“Was given a sternum guard today. Also got called dude like a million times.”_

“Cool.”

 _“It was,”_ she said, _“even though I wasn’t offered any of that other stuff you talked about.”_

Oliver snickered. “You obviously didn’t say ‘gnarly’ or ‘stellar’ enough.”

_“Guess not.”_

Oliver heard Enid laugh and felt the healing in his leg and arm speed up. He only realised he was gnawing on the radio cable with his teeth when Rosita snorted at him.

“What’s she talking about?” she asked.

“Oh,” Oliver made sure his finger was off the PTT button for this, “I guess she’s talking about Jerry, and that she wanted some weed from him.”

“He deals to kids?”

“Sometimes, I guess,” Oliver confessed.

Rosita tutted through her teeth. “Tonto.”

Oliver held his face still, keeping to himself that _‘tonto’_ in Italian meant something a little different to how she meant it in Spanish. Still, he must not have been convincing because Rosita’s eyes narrowed, but she let it go because Oliver had his finger on the PTT button again.

He wanted to ask Enid how Maggie was, if Bean was helping look after the place, if Roan was behaving okay and exercising enough. He wanted to know if Enid spoke to Carol today, or if anybody else had been there like Morayo or Joey or Lani or Esme (Leviathan was probably too young, like Carl), but he couldn’t ask, not without risking any eavesdropping Saviors catching on, not this close to the end, so the topic would have to wait.

The silence over the radio went on for a little too long.

 _“Uh. What’re you up to?”_ Enid asked.

“I dunno,” Oliver answered, “might go get chocolate.” He looked at his leg. The cast stretched all the way from his foot up to his thigh; to accommodate for this, he could only wear one shoe, oversized jeans or sport-shorts, and as well as never being able to properly bend his leg, there was always this itch that was just a little too far to scratch. He sighed. “Second thought, I’ll probably just keep sitting around.”

_“Enthralling.”_

“Yep.” Oliver winced in an attempt to find something else to say. “Err. What about you?”

 _“About to go on watch._ _I should probably get to it...”_

“Yeah.” Oliver hated how short their talks had to be.

 _“Later,”_ Enid said.

“Later.”

Oliver and Rosita sat for a few minutes in static, watching Scab appear through the window. She hopped up onto the arm of Rosita’s chair, and one by one, carried Full Clip and Birds back inside by the scruff.

* * *

Later, Carl arrived back from watch. Barbra was preparing casserole. Carl took over while she went for watch duties. The smell reminded Oliver of Carol and he found himself on the opposite side of the island, chin rested on the countertop, watching Carl put the casserole in the oven and set the timer. Carl noticed this. He took something foil out of his pocket and slid it across to him.

“Chocolate?” Oliver asked.

“Last one,” Carl said.

Grunting thanks, Oliver grabbed it and dug in, sharing a piece. Some minutes passed before Carl spoke to him again.

“What is it?” he asked, starting on washing dishes.

“Mm?” Oliver mumbled.

Carl pointed across the island at him. “You’re looking at me.”

“Yeah. I do that.”

Carl turned away to continue washing at the sink, shaking his head.

“I was thinking,” Oliver admitted.

“‘Bout what?”

“You,” Oliver said. Carl stopped what he was doing for a second, his back still turned away. Oliver frowned, both arms on the island counter. “I was thinking that I’m gonna heal real fast.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And I’m gonna get strong again. Strong enough to do normal stuff, like skateboard and pee standing up and get dressed by myself. You know? Wear pants, and my prosthetic, and have sex.”

Carl looked at him.

“We do other stuff,” he said.

Oliver grumbled to himself, then smiled — a dish cloth hit his face.

“Head out of the clouds, dirt-brain,” Carl said. “You might be disabled, but you can still help me dry dishes.”

Oliver let Carl wheel him over to the sink, and just as they were finishing the dishes, a familiar radio noise pipped and screeched from upstairs:— _“Hey. Hey... Come in. Come in.”_ Quickly, and without hesitation, Oliver flung himself from Dick and began crawling across the kitchen, dragging himself by his foot and hand—the kittens found this hilarious, and did all they could to climb on his back like he was a horse, except the white kitten (this one didn’t have a name yet), who sat off to the side watching curiously. Finally, Oliver was at the staircase and butt-scooting up backwards, grunting and keeping his cast off the ground.

Carl simply watched all this happen, cheese grater in hand and Scab circling under his feet, until Oliver was sitting at the top of the stairs, out of breath.

“You look...” Carl snorted while he tried to find the right word. “... _awesome_ , when you do that. Totally awesome.”

“Whatever.” Oliver disappeared down the hallway. _“Come in. Someone, please, come in.”_ “Why’d you put it in _your_ room anyway?! God, it’s up on the dresser!”

“Hang on, I’ll get it!” Carl went up, dodging kittens. He grabbed the radio and paced his room with it. “Hey. It’s me.”

_“Hey. I have news.”_

“Gimmie!” Oliver, lying on his belly, grabbed at Carl’s pant leg, causing him to trip.

“Just a sec,” Carl grunted, struggling away. “Hey, wait your turn, man!”

 _“Guys! This is serious...”_ Enid was yelling now.

“Sorry, that wasn’t me. _This_ is me,” is what Oliver tried to say, but Carl snatched the radio again.

“Fine. _Other_ me here. Hi,” he said.

_“Hi?”_

“Dude!”

“Ignore him,” Carl said. “He’s just cranky because there’s no chocolate left.” Oliver’s stomach squirmed at the thought, but he gave up, and the two boys huddled together on the rug next to the bed. “So, what’s going on?”

There was a pause of static.

_“I don’t know how to start without saying too much.”_

“Well, is it over yet?” Carl asked.

_“I don’t think so...”_

The two boys glanced at each other, then let her keep talking.

 _“Look, this probably won’t make much sense but I’m gonna try to explain anyway: A bad egg came back in one of your baskets. The good egg is gone. And... And one of our good eggs came back with a_ whole _bunch of bad eggs. Like, rotten, decomposed, inedible bad eggs...”_

“Erm, Oliver?” Carl asked.

Oliver took the receiver, but realised he didn’t know what to say.

_“Please tell me you understood some of that.”_

Carl shook his head. Oliver grimaced and shrugged at him. “Err...”

_“Never mind. You’ll find out soon.”_

“Well, are you safe?” Oliver asked.

_“That’s kind of subjective right now. But I can take care of myself.”_

“Is anybody dead?”

There was a lot of quiet after that.

 _“Yeah...”_ she said.

“We should stop talking about it,” Oliver said, watching a very stoic-looking Carl, “it’s not safe yet.”

_“Yeah. Yeah, okay. Stay safe.”_

“You too. Later.”

Oliver switched the radio off and pushed it aside, staring blankly at the white kitten curled up against his thigh. Carl, sitting across from him, raised his hand and pushed it between the kitten’s ears. She shut her eyes and purred.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Carl said.

Oliver didn’t say anything.

“Could’ve been worse,” Carl added, “eggs are Enid’s specialty.”

“I think it was just the best analogy she could come up with.”

“Yeah well, you were always the pessimist.”

Oliver huffed out a laugh. “Not always.”

Carl smiled.

“I think she means some of Hilltop are back already,” Oliver moved on, “which means the King and his regiment are getting the big gun from the chemical plant, or they already have, or, you know, they haven’t...”

“Dad and Daryl will help, once they get done at the Sanctuary. They know the plan.”

“I should be there,” Oliver hissed. “I should—”

“Shut up.”

Oliver did, with a bitter scowl on his face. He gathered his thoughts enough to take a deep breath in and say, “

“Nope,” Carl said.

“What?”

“Let that breath out. Don't say what you are about to say. And forget you ever thought about it.”

“You don’t even know what I want to say!”

“You want me to drive you out to Hilltop.”

Oliver had to shut his mouth.

“Alright, you do know.” He ran his hand through his hair and went into a small fit of Italian curses, then calmed down and said, “You’re breaking my _balls_ here, man.”

Carl gave him a look; one he got very rarely these days, like the looks he got a lot back around the time he returned from the Kingdom. Oliver knew Carl was worried, and stressed, and overwhelmed, so he pushed the idea away and apologised. Carl simply got up and left the room. Oliver thought he’d really done something wrong, but Carl came back quickly with his sketchpad in hand, plucking a pencil from behind his ear. Had it been there the whole time?

Oliver watched in silence while Carl drew what looked like a small, abstract owl. It took him a few minutes, and when it was finished Carl tossed the pad across to Oliver. It was beautiful—most of Carl’s drawings were these days, not so full of gore or horror or death; in truth, Oliver liked those too, but at least this was a sign that Carl was content.

“It looks like that owl in Clash of the Titans,” Oliver pointed out.

Carl frowned.

“You know,” Oliver said, “the cute, little, mechanical owl? Bubo?”

Carl’s face remained flat and indifferent. Oliver had to not laugh, amazed by how they possibly got on so well when they had such different senses of humour.

Carl told him, “I was kinda thinking more between Jessie’s tattoo—” _Oh... duh._ “—and also the sculpture she made, you know, with Ron and Sam? The one that broke.”

Oliver nodded. Carl took the pad back and made some adjustments to the drawing; deepening the eyes, ruffling the feathers, sharpening the talons. He began flipping back through older drawings, then returned to his owl again. He watched it, like he was waiting for something to happen. He scratched his chin.

“Kinda wanna re-make it,” he said, like it was a confession.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

They didn’t really talk much more about it. Carl went on drawing and Oliver watched him, remembering back to the day they were down in the tombs together, when Carl had told him that sometimes it wasn’t nice to remember things, that sometimes it wasn’t healthy. It was funny how time changed you like that.

Finally, Carl looked up.

“Wanna take a walk?”

Oliver nodded, and then he was being helped outside, into Dick, with Judith on his lap, and pushed slowly along the sidewalk. The three of them went to the lake and skipped stones until the sun was beginning to set, and it was starting to get cold. They were about to head home when they heard engines from outside the gate.

Carl wheeled Oliver and Judith to the sidewalk with Michonne, then helped pull the gate open. Sheeted cars filed into Alexandria. Tara and Scott exited the last, and gave Michonne three letters.

_‘We took the outpost bit by bit. We thought we’d one. We were gathered up in the open when they ambushed us. It was over in seconds. Ezekiel, Jerry and me. We are the only ones who made it back._

_—Carol.’_

_‘We beat them. But things got complicated. Jesus took prisoners, brought them back home. We’re holding them outside our gates for now until we decide what to do. Until I decide._

_—Maggie.’_

_'The plan is working. We’re doing this. We’re winning...The rest of the plan is still a go. We’re moving on to the next step. I’m headed there now...We meet at the Sanctuary in two days to end this. To win it all. It’s not like we haven’t fought before. We fought every step of the way to this place. To this moment. The path has lead us here to who we are, to each other, to now. And we are so close. This can be our last fight._

_—Rick.’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to temptedtorun on twitter for your drawing of Oliver a few months ago. I only just saw it recently because I only recently got an account. But yeah, thanks so much. It's awesome. Bwt my account is notmuchmore2say
> 
> Dunno how anybody’s gonna receive this one. Not a lot is happening in Alexandria rn so I needed a way to include them.
> 
> Happy reading.


	137. Season 8 ~ The King, the Widow & Rick, Part 2: Siddiq

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Making friends?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: we finna just ignore that last episode  
> (lol im suffering)

The boys slept very little that night. Neither had the same dilemma but both needed each other as an excuse to execute them. They were awake discussing a plan of action for hours until they were so exhausted they passed out in a heap on the couch. Still, they woke up early to leave without anybody catching them, which was made a lot simpler when they realised that nobody tried to stop them; not Michonne or Daryl or Tara or Rosita, who were all out somewhere, and not Rick, who was still out re-allying with the Junkies, and nobody like Scott or Barbra were going to argue, so Carl and Oliver simply took the eagle truck, made a lame excuse, and left.

By the time the burned suburb had faded out into long, tree-hooded, country roads, Oliver had developed a question in his head. Carl didn’t look away from the road, but must’ve noticed, because he asked, “What’s up?”

Oliver jumped a little.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. E...Even if you find this Muslim guy, how do you know he’s someone we can trust?”

Carl thought about this, squeezing both hands around the wheel.

“I gotta do what’s right,” he explained. “Made a promise.”

Oliver knew the one, remembered it in Carl’s own words from that night in the office blocks: _‘You gotta do what's right, baby,’_ he recited in his head. _‘Promise me you'll always do what's right. It's so easy to do the wrong thing in this world. So, if it feels wrong, don't do it. If it feels easy, don't do it. Don't let the world spoil you...’_

Under his breath, Oliver whispered, “You are so good...” but caught how the side of Carl’s mouth lifted, like he might’ve heard, and moved on: “So, what’s your plan?”

“My ‘plan’?”

“You know, once you do find him— _if_ you find him. What are you gonna say?”

Carl’s face went a little pale. “I, uh... I’ll introduce myself. And I’ll explain that I have food, water.” His face looked very stiff as he turned the truck into a narrow layby to park. They were close to where they’d come yesterday morning, only now inside the forest nearby. “I’ll... I’ll tell him I want to help.”

“What if he doesn’t believe you?” Oliver asked.

Carl shrugged and switched off the engine. “He talked about his mom. He’s the same as me—honouring his parents. Well, one of them.” He’d said that part under his breath. “He’ll understand.”

Oliver felt a small bit of guilt at that, and perhaps jealousy. It was something he and Carl had never been able to relate over. Oliver never got to say goodbye to his parents. There were no promises or last words to honour or not honour. They were just rotting in graves with their youngest, unborn son, and their eldest, three states away, buried in a prison yard.

“You’ll ask him the three questions?”

“‘Course.”

Oliver nodded his head, fidgeting.

“You know you’re the biggest hypocrite I’ve ever met for this, right?” he pointed out. “This is beyond just being stubborn and reckless, even for you. This... This is...”

Carl waited. They both knew Rick would be furious. They’d discussed it last night; bringing back a stranger, _now,_ with everything going on? Not to mention what Oliver was out here for. It was more rebellious than they had ever been before, alone or together. Only it wasn’t really rebellion—on the surface, maybe. But deeper in the roots of this was their independence. This was about making their own choices. This was about being their own person and taking responsibility for the fact that sometimes the grown-ups had it wrong.

Finally, Oliver sighed.

“I guess this is fine...”

As Carl got out and retrieved his backpack, Oliver prepared for his own mission: reaching the Kingdom with his radio, since the distance would be short enough now. It was no visiting the Hilltop, but it was something. He could maybe talk to Carol. He could find out if his friends were okay.

Carl helped set the radio up, perching it precariously on the middle compartment with a book under its side for balance. “Y’good?”

Oliver nodded. Carl hugged him. He smelled of damp and dirt and aftershave and Oliver pushed his nose in and inhaled.

“Be careful, man.”

“Will,” Carl said. “Back in a minute. _We_ will.” And then he left.

The forest was busy and the wind was strong through the treetops, blowing harsh shadows across the hood of the truck. Oliver switched through channels. He picked up noise from what he had to guess was the Sanctuary. It sounded like Simon: _“Chem, come in. Come in. Chem. Come in!”_ and nothing was coming back except other Saviours saying they couldn’t see anything either. _“We’ll be fine. We just gotta wait for the fat lady to sing.”_ This seemed like good news, more or less. It meant at least that they were still cut off from their other outposts. Oliver knew already from the letters that the big gun in the chemical plant hadn’t been delivered, but whoever or whatever the fat lady was, sounded like a whole new thing to worry about. Not right now though. Right now, the fat lady could wait and Oliver had to focus on contacting his friends. But he had to be careful. He needed to contact the Kingdom without mistaking its channel for anybody else’s. Ezekiel told him which it was, so he tried it, too anxious to talk into it yet, and instead simply mashed the PTT button for a few seconds, until finally he blurted, “Lani!” into the receiver.

He felt stupid. He put the receiver down and bit his mouth. Rick told them to stay put, to _not_ go chasing after Muslim boys or reaching out to any allies. Still, he wasn’t hurting anybody. Worst that could happen now was the Sanctuary would know someone was listening in, but by now they had to know that, perhaps it could even be used as an alibi for Dwight if anybody got suspicious on him—then again, after what he did to Denise, Oliver wasn’t sure he wanted to make Dwight an alibi anyway.

Finally, Oliver pressed the receiver again and said, “Hello? It’s me.” He waited ten seconds and tried again, hoping _someone_ at Kingdom would have a radio or walkie-talkie on, that it would still be on this channel. He almost gave up, until he heard the crackle.

_“...Oliver?”_

He almost choked. “Hey... Hey! Oh my God. Err...” He forgot what he was doing. Hearing Henry for the first time in so long was over stimulating. “Hello. Hi. Yeah.”

 _“You got back to us,”_ he said.

“Yeah. Sorry it took so long... I had to go away. I’m sorry. It’s real good to hear you, man.”

Henry was quiet for a bit.

Finally, he asked. _“Did you hear about what happened?”_

“...Yeah, I did.” Oliver couldn’t say anything else. His voice was hiding from him. Henry went away too. A part of Oliver hoped he wouldn’t come back. He wished he would go get Lani. He wished he didn’t have to ask any of the questions reeling around in his head, but he’d come out here for a reason, and it was too late to back out now. “Is Lani there?”

_“...No... She... She was at the fight too.”_

Oliver felt his veins dry up. He shut his eyes and felt a swell of pain and anger rise up in his throat. He didn’t want to ask about Ray and his dad, or Leviathan and Dianne, or Esme and their mom, or Joey... _‘It was over in seconds.’_

Oliver felt sick.

_“Ben died, but that was before. I don’t know if you know that.”_

“I do,” Oliver said, working hard to keep his voice still.

_“Okay.”_

Oliver wiped his face and kept his finger off the PTT button.

_“The King doesn’t want to be the king anymore.”_

Henry didn’t speak for a minute or two. Oliver either. Until finally, he pulled himself together and said, “I’m sorry, Henry. Do... Do you have anybody to talk to?”

_“Carol’s around, and Jerry, but, they don’t seem all into talking, since... Um. Ms. Hale’s teaching me ASL, so me and Juni can talk better. I like it. And I’m practicing Aikido now, but, Morgan hasn’t come back yet, since he’s at the Saviour’s place keeping lookout, so I don’t have anybody to teach me.”_

Oliver didn’t know what to say.

 _“I’m going to help kill them,”_ Henry told him, _“the people who killed my brother.”_

“One day,” Oliver said. “You’re too little right now.”

 _“I can look after myself,”_ Henry said.

“I know, man.” Oliver had to cut off short because his voice was shaking.

_“Are... Are you okay?”_

“Yeah. Yeah, listen, man. I have to go. I... I probably won’t be able to get back to you again for a while. Range doesn’t reach unless I drive out from home. Look after Carol for me, would you?”

_“Yeah. I promise.”_

“Okay. See you, Henry.”

 _“See you.”_ Then the radio went to static. Oliver switched it off and let out a long sigh that hurt, feeling that feeling like when he’d get his panic attacks. He wiped his face, put his hand flat to the dashboard, and tried to think clearly. Carl would be back soon. Oliver would have to explain what he’d learned, as well as deal with Carl’s new friend. Oliver hated meeting new people at the best of times. He hated _losing_ people. And then he was getting out of the car, wishing he could pace or run or shout but he just ended up using his Axillary crutch to support him against the side of the eagle truck. Outside, with the dirt under his feet, he felt steadier and more grounded, and the gears in his mind loosened to a tolerable amount.

Then a faint buzzing noise began; Oliver thought he might have been hearing things. He looked up and twisted his head around, and there, emerging through the treeline, was a helicopter flying overhead.

It was low, like it would land sometime soon, or maybe it was just getting a good look at anything inside the forest. Oliver was afraid for a second that it was looking for _him_ , but it was gone before he could find a way to duck under anything, leaving him feeling small and spooked and like he’d been left out of something important. He wondered if he should follow it, and went to snatch for his crutch, but heard something else close by, on the ground, and turned around.

A walker.

Oliver backed up and climbed into the truck, shutting the door quickly. He waited, and the walker slammed itself into the vehicle and gnashed its teeth against the window. Oliver wound it down a crack, then stuck his knife through the walker’s nose. Blood dribbled into the truck and the walker slouched against the glass, until Oliver yanked his knife out, and the body collapsed hard to the ground.

Oliver cleaned his knife on the sole of his shoe.

He saw something bloody pass through the wing-mirror, and pinned himself back to the seat, bracing himself. Leaves crunched under foot. Something bumped into the side of the truck. Oliver took out his gun when something took his door and pulled it wide open, and then—

“Whoa, whoa, it’s me.”

“Goddamn it, man. I almost shot you.”

Carl had his hands up, eye wide. “Well could you not aim at my face. I’d like it if you at least left me _one_ eye.”

Oliver holstered his gun and punched him. "Jesus, you're covered in shit." It wasn't shit. It was blood; a once grey flannel shirt now crimson and soaked. Oliver checked him over for any bites or scratches, but Carl pushed his hand away and told him to calm down. Oliver resolved to take Carl's face in his hand and ask, "You're okay?"

"We ran into some walkers," Carl said.  _We._ Yeah. Crap. Oliver looked around the truck door and saw the stranger. Carl turned to look too. "Yeah, uh. This is Siddiq."

Siddiq raised a hand, passing back Oliver’s Axillary crutch which he’d dropped outside. Siddiq was older than Oliver expected. In his early twenties, whereas Oliver had it in his head he might’ve been a little more than their age, like Noah maybe. Siddiq was slim and lanky, with short black hair, a long nose, and dark brown eyes. He looked dirty and hungry and cold.

“Hi,” he said.

Oliver waved with his free arm, which was his amp arm, his eyes switching between both people in front of him.

“This is my boyfriend Oliver,” Carl told Siddiq. He turned to Oliver. “He’s cool. Swear.”

Oliver nodded.

“What were his answers?” he asked.

“Two-hundred-and-thirty... uh...”

“Seven,” Siddiq said. “ _Two_ -hundred-and-thirty-seven of the dead.”

Carl nodded gratefully. “Killed a person—put him down.”

Satisfied, Oliver looked at Siddiq and smiled politely. “It’s good to meet you.”

“You too. You too. Both of you. Thank you. Thank you.” It was strange for Oliver, being on the receiving end of this. He got awkward and sat back in the truck, pulling the door shut and setting his crutch next to him securely. Carl helped him put the radio back, and let Siddiq in the trunk.

“You guys look like you’ve been through it,” Siddiq said while Carl was climbing into the driver’s seat. “What happened?”

“It’s a long story, man,” Oliver said. He looked at Carl and inhaled. “I have to ask you to do something for me.”

“What?” Carl said.

“We need to drive to the chemical outpost.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fuck this show.  
> Happy reading.


	138. Season 8 ~ How It’s Gotta Be, Part 1: Sore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nobody gets left behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The first half’s more in Carl’s perspective, but a little more outside of his head given ... you know... ‘what happened’, then in the second half, we’re back to Oliver’s perspective. Hope it’s less distracting now in third person.

“You’re sure about this?”

“No.”

Carl glanced at Oliver from the road.

“I mean, _yes,_ ” Oliver corrected. “I’m sure. I just... I know I’m not going to like it.”

“Then why are we doing this?”

“I have to,” Oliver said, his eyes fixed forward on the road and his hand clamped tight against the edge of his seat. “I have to see it.”

Carl drove almost half the morning. It was a good thing that the Junkyard was nowhere near, or they might’ve even ran into his dad on his way back. When they were close, Carl pulled over upon noticing a wrecked Jeep that’d rolled down a bank and caught fire. The smoke was still black.

“It’s the machine gun,” Oliver whispered.

Siddiq had been sitting in the back drinking some powdered milk. He was more or less up to speed now with everything going on between the communities, but he still looked anxious when he leaned forward to look over the seats.

“And you’re sure they won’t still be there, at this chemical plant?”

“Yeah,” Carl reassured him. “Nobody left.”

“I don’t want to make trouble,” Siddiq said. “Really.”

“Don’t worry,” Carl told him. “I’m sorry about this. Oliver just needs to figure some stuff out. We’ll be back home soon. Swear.”

Oliver looked like he’d tried to give a grateful smile, but it looked more like a flinch. Carl handed Siddiq a pack of Cheetos, hoping it would help. It must’ve because he dipped them in his powdered milk; Carl had to look away, feeling queasy.

Soon, they were at the chemical plant, and even though they’d never been here, Carl and Oliver had still read enough plans and maps to know exactly how to get to the small farm and take its tractor trail out through the field right to the backdoor of the plant; it was the same way the King’s regiment had taken, by the amount of trodden earth, and quickly, they saw that it was the same place the ambush had been. There was a tall, barbed, fence all around the plant, and part of it was broken, and before it, just like Carol had explained in her letter, a huge graveyard of armed Kingdom bodies were laid out in the open.

Oliver looked so pale Carl worried he’d throw up.

“Want me to go and look for them?” Carl asked.

Oliver’s chin shook. “I don’t want you to get hurt because of me.”

Carl had to blink away the wet threatening his eyes. He swallowed dryly and looked out over the mess of blood and bodies. He shook his head. “No walkers anymore, but I’ll look out for stragglers.”

“I’ll come with you,” Siddiq said. Carl looked at him and nodded, then turned to Oliver, who didn’t seem to have any objections.

“Keep the doors locked,” Carl said, “honk if you see anything coming. Stay _in_ the truck. Okay?”

Oliver just nodded as the other two got out of the truck and made their slow and careful way across the pasture. Carl didn’t focus very much on the bodies closest to the truck. He didn’t recognise them, and could see already they’d been taken care of. There were arms and legs lying around in trails, and one soldier who had nothing but a chest and one thigh. It made Carl _glad_ the machine gun was destroyed, even gladder when he saw Mr. Dimka, Ray’s father, whose skull was blown apart. His arm had been eaten on... by Ray, who was still trapped there under his father’s body. They must’ve died trying to protect each other. Carl put Ray down, then got up quickly, taking a second to brace himself for how foul the next part was going to be.

Slow and careful, he and Siddiq sorted through the collection of bodies before the outpost’s gate. They were all certainly dead, but some still needed to be put down. Carl found Joey next out of the people he recognised. His eyes were sunken and staring at the sky, and a whole part of his chest had been blown out. Then he recognised Esme’s mom, and who must have been Esme by the similarities of their appearances. They got it done, which took a long time, until finally, Carl and Siddiq cleaned their knives and headed back towards the truck.

“They’d be grateful,” Siddiq said, “you doing that for them.”

“It wasn’t for them...”

Carl was breathless and starting to sweat. He looked for Oliver’s face in the truck and saw, through the sky’s reflection on the windscreen, only his thick, black glasses staring back at him. Carl wondered if he knew—knew like sometimes Oliver just _knew_ things. Carl wanted to say something, or make some gesture that could comfort him. He wondered how he would tell him. He’d find out soon enough, that was a given, but maybe he should just do it now, get it done like ripping off a band-aid. Damn. He could split open with telling him, ooze with it right into the earth under his feet... but Siddiq veered off towards something that’d caught his attention, and Carl followed.

“Missed one,” Siddiq said quietly. He knelt down beside a small huddle of bodies, pushing some aside. Carl saw the raised arm, the gasping mouth, and waited for Siddiq to put it down.

“Wait...”

Carl barely got the word out as he recognised her. _Her._ Lani. Exhausted and blood-coated and reaching out from the pile of dead Kingdommers.

“Grab her,” Carl said. He was already knelt next to her, shoving bodies away and hoisting her up and under his arm. Siddiq helped, dragging her towards the truck. Lani stumbled along, looking up at the sky like she couldn’t tell if it was real.

“Lani?” Oliver yelled out the window. “Oh my God!”

“Open the back!” Carl gasped, and saw Oliver disappear, then a moment later reappear, struggling to shove the doors open from the inside. Carl and Siddiq helped Lani in. She looked all frail and limp and covered in old blood. Oliver’d bashed his leg at some point while moving and gritted his teeth. He helped check her over for any bites or bullet wounds. She seemed okay, more exhausted and starved than anything. Carl got in, turned the truck around, and began driving for the road.

“Kingdom’s closer,” Oliver grunted.

“No,” Carl snapped. “It’s right next-door to the Sanctuary. The spotters’ll think somethings wrong if they see us.”

“So? I can radio Morgan and explain.”

“ _No,_ ” Carl repeated. “The safest place is home.”

“Are you sure?” Oliver asked.

Carl looked at him through the rear-view mirror. He looked and he looked and he wished he had the right words in his chest, but he didn’t, so he just looked back at the road again and said, “We have to go home. It’s safest. I can take care of you. I can take care of _all_ of you.”

Oliver didn’t argue after that.

* * *

 

Back home at Alexandria, Lani was recovering in the infirmary after a wash and some food and drink. Oliver hadn’t seen much of Carl. He didn’t wait at the infirmary. Didn’t even stop to talk with Oliver about what to do next. He just dropped him and Lani off then drove off to hide Siddiq in the sewers—it was the best solution until all this was over. Nobody was back yet. Rick was still negotiating with the Junkies (which was taking too long—he’d said two days, maybe three, that he was expecting them to pull something, and that he was ready for it), and as well as that, nobody knew where Michonne, Tara, Daryl and Rosita were or what they were doing, so all the rest of Alexandria could do was keep themselves prepared.

In the infirmary, Tobin and a few others were recovering from any injuries they’d sustained at the Sanctuary. Scott, too, was there for a little while to keep an eye on everyone, but left to go bring supper for them all.

Lani hadn’t spoken yet. Oliver stayed with her. She was in shock, he knew, with a concussion and some cuts and bruises, and must have gone almost two days without food or water. She likely only survived by hiding under the dead soldiers after the shooting. She seemed, at the very least, grateful that nobody was asking her any questions. Oliver did however tell her that she wasn’t the only one who survived, that Jerry, Ezekiel and Carol did too, and were home now, but as much as this was good news it didn’t make up for all the other’s she’d watched die. She cried a lot, and seemed to even cry when she’d fall asleep for a few minutes, until she was so exhausted that she seemed to be out of crying altogether.

Carl arrived eventually.

“Hey!” Oliver said, embarrassed a little by how high and eager his voice sounded. “Err, haven’t seen you much. How’s things with... you know?”

“Fine,” Carl said, rummaging through cupboards. He still hadn’t changed his clothes. The blood was drier now, except some thicker soaks of it across his front. He saw Lani was asleep, and tried to be quieter. “How is she?”

“Exhausted,” Oliver whispered, “but okay.”

Carl nodded, pocketing things. He considered some antiseptic thoughtfully, but put it back. He let out a long breath and headed for the door.

“Hey, wait,” Oliver said, “every... everything okay?”

Carl stood there with his bloodied-up flannel back to Oliver for a second, then turned to him. He was going to answer, but Scott came in the door. He went to Lani, bidding the boys a quiet hello as he wheeled Oliver out of the way and put a tray of soup, another glass of water, and some spare warm clothes on her bedside. Oliver took the opportunity to get out of Dick and hop on one foot over to Carl, who was again caught attempting to leave.

Oliver stumbled but Carl caught him by the arm. His hands were clammy. He had bags under his eyes and he was pale and sweating. Oliver wished Carl would take a minute to rest, to sit down—he probably hadn’t even stood still since he got home. No wonder he looked so beat.

“I know this is a dumb question,” he said, “especially now, but what do you want for your birthday?”

Carl stopped, blinking a little. “What?”

“It’s still a month away, I know, but I just figured if you wanted anything specific I can focus on finding it now, you know?”

Carl looked around, something like a frown on his face, but sadder.

“I don’t know, Oliver,” he said, “we’ve got other stuff to worry about right now.”

“I know that,” Oliver said. “But I’m not thinking about ‘right now’. I’m thinking about after. So, what’s it gonna be? What do you want?”

Carl sighed. He shook his head. He looked like he wanted to say something, but he just said, “It doesn’t matter,” and left.

* * *

 

Later, when the sky was dark and Alexandria was glowing faintly from porch lights and lanterns, Oliver left to let Lani sleep. Scott wheeled him home, but allowed Oliver to walk by himself once he was up on the front porch, Axillary crutch under arm. It was lucky that his left hand was still strong because by now he was quite good at using his crutch; he could walk normally, so long as normally meant slowly—medium speed at a push. He could still out-walk a walker, at least.

Oliver made it to his room, half expecting Carl to be waiting for him, but the room was empty so he left for the kitchen, only to find Lani at the front door, shutting it behind her.

“Err, hi, Lani.”

“Hey,” she croaked back, stepping bare-foot across the room to take a seat at the kitchen island. She picked at a band-aid on her eyebrow and rubbed her arms warm (her armour had been washed and hung up to dry in the infirmary).

Oliver pointed at her face. “Never seen you without makeup.”

She rolled her eyes.

Oliver shrugged. “Not a bad thing. Just a thing.” To be honest, Oliver liked the way Lani looked with or without, but felt a bit demeaning admitting it. Still, without, Lani’s brown skin wasn’t just brown; she had acne, and dark, tear-drop, circles under her eyes, a pale, speckled birthmark on her cheek, and freckles everywhere, even on her neck and the backs of her hands. Even her natural, dark hair colour had grown out now to about three or so inches, like she’d dipped the other ten or so in gold.

“Your leg’s broken,” she pointed out, whispering it.

“Yeah.” Oliver laughed. “I noticed.”

“I already knew,” she admitted. “It’s just different, actually seeing it.” Oliver heard that. He thought about how he felt hearing about the chemical plant ambush, how different it was to see it too.

Some kittens must’ve heard them, and came tumbling down the staircase to see what was going on, closely followed by their mother. Lani got up and collected them all, except the shy, white one. Oliver introduced them, and warned Lani not to touch Scab in case she lashed out. It was nice. Lani seemed to almost melt around Full Clip and Birds, and was even quiet enough that the unnamed, white kitten was almost tempted to greet her, but in the end was only brave enough to hide behind a stool leg. Scab was rubbing herself under Oliver’s feet.

Just then, Scott burst in through the front door. He saw Lani and cursed. He put his hands on his hips, pointed at her, then pointed behind him to about where the infirmary was, until finally he shook his head, threw up his hands, and walked back out of the house.

Oliver snorted.

“I think you broke him,” he said.

Lani laughed a tiny bit, but winced and touched her throat.

“Sore?” Oliver asked, stepping over.

She nodded. “A bit.”

“Rest your voice, drink water—” At this Oliver hobbled across the kitchen and poured her some. “—and you’ll be back to normal in no time.”

“Will you?”

“More or less.” Oliver shrugged and hopped up onto the counter, sideways so his cast leg could hang straight over the edge—Scab stood on her back legs to rub her face on his toes. “No doctors. I’ll be rusty, but I’ll be fine.”

She smiled like she believed him, even though her eyes were wet. Oliver figured it was best not to mention that he’d contacted the Kingdom earlier. Anything he’d learned, she knew already, so instead he told her about everything else. He told her, “The plan’s still working. The ones lost, haven’t lost for nothing. We’ll win this. I know it.”

“That’s... That’s what I told Juni,” she whispered. She shook her head. “He... He thinks I’m...”

“For now,” Oliver said.

“He’ll be so afraid,” she said, barely squeaking it.

“We’ll get you home soon.”

Lani started to cry again after that. Oliver made his way around the table and put his free arm around her, kissing into the top of her head. She was heavy against him, sobbing hard, and he had to adjust his foot and crutch so he didn’t fall, and then, after a while, Lani’s breath became smoother and the kittens were purring on her lap and Oliver realised she was falling asleep.

“Hey, hey. Don’t pass out in here,” he said. “You can have my bed for tonight.”

She looked apprehensive.

“I’m a cripple, Lani, not an asshole.”

Smiling, she sniffed and shook her head. “It’s okay. I’ll go back to the infirmary. Could I just borrow a toothbrush, and maybe a hairbrush?” Oliver gave her both, and a hair tie, then waited while she went upstairs and got ready for bed. Once she was back, her hair was braided over her shoulder and she looked a little more comfortable.

“My ears are still ringing,” she croaked. “Like I’ve got a dog whistle in my head or something.”

“Yeah,” Oliver said, trying not to look too sympathetic. “Think Carl told me Rick gets that. From his old job, around gunshots a lot. And when we lived back at the prison, he used to farm with headphones, but I think that was sometimes to keep out the sound of the walkers outside the fence too.”

“Think that’s the most you’ve ever told me about yourself,” she said. “And it wasn’t really even about you.”

Oliver smiled guiltily.

“So, you lived in a prison?”

“Yeah. In Georgia, with my brother.”

“You had a brother,” she said.

“Two. But they died. One over a year ago, and the other I only found out I even had a few months ago.”

She looked like she wanted to ask more, but became distracted and stuck her fingers in her ears again.

“It’s worse in quiet,” she said. “I don’t know how Juni does it.”

“Well he is deaf,” Oliver pointed out. “And mute.”

Lani rolled her eyes and rubbed her ears again.

“I got you,” Oliver said, and went to grab his stereo. Lani followed him into his room.

“Are you sure?”

He gave her a look.

“Right, right,” she said, “you’re a cripple, not an asshole—got it.” He let Lani choose through his CDs. After a long internal standoff between The Beatles and Etta Jones, she chose Etta; a personal idol of hers, or maybe she just had a sweet spot after she saw that movie with Beyoncé playing Etta’s part.

“Thank you,” she said. “Shoulda said it before, to Carl too. But yeah. Thanks.”

Oliver just shrugged. Lani sighed, then headed for the door with her things. Once she was gone, Oliver stood there in the living room for a minute, his mind blank and quiet for once. And it stayed that way for a while. The world was quiet and calm and okay. But it didn’t last. Nothing ever did. Three loud clashes sounded from the gate and Oliver De Luca’s world returned to noise and darkness again. He knew the noise. Wood on metal. And he knew the next sound too, anticipated it like a bite from a walker.

“YOU MAY BE WONDERING WHY THE FUCK YOUR LOOKOUTS DIDN’T SOUND THE ALARM. SEE, WE ARE POLITE. I MEAN, I DON’T KNOW WHEN THEY’RE GONNA WAKE UP FROM THAT KIND OF SHOCK, BUT THEY SHOULD WAKE THE FUCK UP. SO, LETS JUST CUT THIS SHIT.

YOU LOSE.

IT’S OVER.

SO, YOU’RE GONNA LINE UP IN FRONT OF YOUR FUCKING HOUSES AND YOU’RE GONNA WORK UP SOME APOLOGIES. AND THEN, THE PERSON WITH THE LAMEST ONE, IS GONNA GET KILLED. THEN I KILL RICK IN FRONT OF EVERYBODY, AND WE MOVE ON.

YOU HAVE THREE MINUTES TO OPEN THIS GATE, OR WE START BOMBING THE FUCK OUT OF YOU.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dampy boi told me he’d delete his Stale M&M’s BLasPHeMy fanfiction if I saved Lani so here ya go fuckers also lol Carl still hates powdered milk also damn if you saw the latest msf wow wild amirite? 
> 
> Just a heads up, when it happens, it ain't gonna be sweet. It ain't gonna be romantic. It's gonna be awful. It's going to be disappointing and everyone will deserve better because I can't write anything that would actually do the characters justice. Just so we're all aware. Yep. Cool.
> 
> Happy reading.


	139. Season 8 ~ How It’s Gotta Be, Part 2: To Happen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All of Oliver's nightmares in about 3000 words I guess, but from Carl's perspective.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Gore and sad shit.

Negan was whistling into the stale night-sky while Carl got busy over by the trucks, stocking his bag full of smoke bombs. Some of the others were there, and Carl was telling them what to do:

“You need to make it look like we're escaping out back. Get to the woods, halfway to the quarry, and cut the lights. Get enough of a lead on them, hit them, and get away on foot. You know where we'll be. Just have to get the guns, get everyone else here, and we'll meet you there.”

“TWO MINUTES, PEOPLE!” Negan yelled from the gate. “DIG DEEP. I WANT THESE APOLOGIES TO BE MEMORABLE. BONUS POINTS FOR CREATIVITY. WORK UP A POEM, SING A SONG. I FUCKING _LOVE_ THAT SHIT.”

Carl caught his breath.

“Get going,” he said. “There's gonna be people in the infirmary. They're gonna need your help.” Tobin, Scott and Brian left quickly.

Negan went on whistling.

“Look, we got guns,” Tara said. “We can fight them.”

“We will, but not now,” Rosita answered. “Carl's right.”

“Carl,” Michonne whispered, “we can't just let them have this place.”

“We can,” Carl insisted. “All you need to do is survive _tonight_. This is _my_ show. You said it. This is my plan, and you're gonna do it. You're all gonna do it. _So let's go!_ ”

“ONE MINUTE!” Negan shouted. “ONE MINUTE!”

In seconds, Carl was running home, thundering up the steps, across the porch —he caught sight of Scab, who seemed to sense something was wrong, hiding her kittens under the decking— and when he burst in through the front door, Oliver was just standing there in the living room, like he was waiting for something to happen and not happen.

Carl collided with him like a battering ram. Oliver was knocked to the floor and Carl followed, landing in a painful heap. Carl was sweating and out of breath as he helped Oliver to his feet again. He didn’t even let Oliver speak.

“Crap, you can’t be here. Dammit. Oliver, you can’t be here! There’s no time. You need to get to the sewers. Can you get there on your own? Can you? Dammit— _dammit!_ Okay just stay here. _Stay right here._ Someone’ll come and get you. I promise. I have to go to the gate. No time! Please, Oliver, I have to go.” Carl hugged him long and hard and said, “I love you,” and that’s how he ruined it. He knew. By the look on Oliver's face as Carl pulled away, it was obvious.

But Carl had to go—“Wait... Carl, wait!”—and was out of the house, rounding the corner at the end of the street, and he knew Oliver couldn’t follow him.

He wanted to find Scott or Tobin, to let them know Oliver was at home, but the infirmary was too far away and Carl needed to be at the ladder and he could already hear Negan counting down outside the wall.

“ _Dammit!_ ”

“OKIE DOKIE! BROUGHT THIS ON YOURSELF, RICK. Y’SEE I WAS WILLING TO WORK WITH YOU. ALL YOU HAD TO DO WAS FOLLOW A FEW _VERY_ SIMPLE RULES.

NOW?

NOW I SEE THAT YOU HAVE GOT TO FUCKING _GO_. SCORCHED FUCKING _EARTH,_ YOU FUCKING _DICK!_ ”

“He's not home,” Carl called out, breathless atop the guard post. He saw Negan and the Saviors in front of the gate, armed and snapping their gazes up to him.

“OH! _HO!_ HOLY _FUCK_!” Negan grinned, one hand gripped around Lucille, the other around a mic. “EVERYBODY, HOLD YOUR FIRE, IT’S CARL.

LOOK AT YOU. ANSWERING THE DOOR LIKE A _BIG_ BOY.

I AM SO PROUD.

DADDY’S NOT HOME, HUH? WELL I GUESS HE’S GONNA GET BACK TO A BIG OL’ SMOKEY SURPRISE.”

“There's families in here,” Carl told them. “Kids. _My little sister._ ”

“WELL THAT SHIT JUST BREAKS MY FUCKING HEART,” Negan replied. “THERE’S KIDS AT THE SANCTUARY, TOO. YOU MUSTA SEEN’EM. WE EVEN HAD A LITTLE BABY IN ONE OF THE OUTPOSTS. I WONDER WHAT HAPPENED TO HER...”

He stepped forward, dropping his mic to his side—speaking just to Carl now.

“None of this shit’s fair, kid. Hell, you know that. You had to kill your own mom. That is fucked up.

Aergo, we need someone in charge who’s willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that shit doesn’t fucking happen.

Oh. Wait.

That’s me!”

Carl shook his head.

“Bad stuff does happen,” he admitted, “but we can figure this out. We can stop this.”

“Oh, _now_ you wanna talk?!” Negan shouted. “See, your dad had it that I died no matter what. He gave my people a choice. Not me. Now we're gonna need a new understanding. Apologies, punish—”

“ _Kill me._ ”

The sentence came out in tandem. Carl was so overpowered by his own words that it took him a second to realise they had rendered Negan speechless as well.

He stepped forward.

His grin went away.

He asked, “What did you say?”

And Carl said, “If you have to kill someone, if there has to be punishment, then kill me... _I'm serious._ ”

Negan’s smile returned, but it was stale, and it didn’t last until the end of his next sentence. “You wanna die?”

“No,” Carl said, “I don't. But I will... It's gonna happen. And if...if me dying could stop this—if it can make things different, for us, for you, for all those other kids, it'd be worth it.”

He took a breath. The image below of Negan _actually_ listening to him was so ridiculous and unexpected and cruel, _perverted_ almost, that somehow, Carl felt a laugh huff through his mouth.

“I mean, was this the plan?” he asked, the swell of amusement now festering into something heavy and miserable in his throat. “Was it _supposed_ to be this way? Is this who you wanted to be?”

Again, Negan looked up at him like he didn’t know what to say. He inhaled. He gritted his teeth. And Carl didn’t know what the look on his face was supposed to mean. Perhaps he would have found out. Perhaps Negan was going to change his mind. But Carl never found out, because then, behind him in Alexandria, engines revved and tires screeched and several garbage trucks and cars crashed through the east wall and drove away, and although Carl couldn’t see from here, he knew the decoy was beginning.

He took his chance while Negan and the others were distracted, ducking behind the wall and crawling towards the ladder.

“Son of a bitch, Carl!” Negan roared. “Was that just a play?! I thought we were having a moment, you fucking asshole! _Bombs away!_ ”

Carl heard guns cock as he descended. He heard the strange _thonk!_ ing noises...and then a building across from him exploded. Carl lost purchase on the step. He felt himself tumble and fall and as he hit the ground, something in his left foot crunched and pain shot up through his ankle. He hissed and groaned and felt his face twist up. Then a car behind him blew up too. Carl gasped. He got up, snatching his bag and hat, and as he made his way for the sewers, limping, he set off smoke bombs in his wake to hide himself. He had to hope someone got Oliver out of the house, to the sewers, and as he got close he saw other Alexandrians rushing to take shelter through the grid.

Lani was there, helping people in. When she saw Carl she began waving. “Over here!” Carl stopped in front of her, gasping. A building blew up behind them. Another. The gate was being torn down.

“Is this everyone?”

“Yeah. Should be. I think... wait. Tobin, where’s Oliver?”

“He came with you. From the infirmary.”

“No. We weren’t together.”

“When did you last see him?” he asked her.

Carl bent down into the sewer grid and screamed, “Oliver?! You in there?!” And it took a few minutes of asking around until people’s whispers came back saying—“Oliver?” “No. He’s not down here.” “Oh, my.” “We thought your street was empty.” “Oh, shit, kid.”

Carl felt his stomach sink. His head was pounding. Incensed, he punched the cement and cursed, then got up, his body vibrating, and left as quickly as he could. “I’ll be back. Get everybody safe.”

Lani followed.

“Go back!” he told her.

“No way! Look at you.”

“Go b—” Ahead of him, the church exploded and he staggered back. His ankle went dead and he fell to his knees. Lani told the others to keep working, then rushed over and took under his arm.

“Come on, I can help.” She was shorter than him, but strong enough to take most of his weight.

They got going. Carl could hear Saviors looking for them and set off another smoke bomb. They kept walking, close to the infirmary now. Carl could hear music coming from inside.

_She’s leavin’ and hopes are feeling so low_   
_They’re grievin’ and they’re consolin’ poor Joe_   
_Gonna miss her charm_   
_Gonna miss her smile_   
_She’ll be travellin’ alone down that last long mile..._

Houses surrounding them were rubble and flame. Smoke was filling the streets. Without warning, Lani yanked him to the side and the porch to their left exploded.

“Sorry. Here,” Lani said, almost dragging him to the next street towards a parked car. “Your leg. Shit. I didn’t mean to push you. I had to get you away from the grenade.”

Carl was in so much pain. He couldn’t find the breath and words to thank her. He leant against the car bonnet and caught his breath for a moment, then pushed himself off and took a few steps. He managed a small, hoarse, “C’mon,” as he limped towards home, “we have to—"

He didn’t finish his sentence. He hardly had a moment to turn and look. But he heard it, the small smack and ring as something hard landed on the road and rolled under the car... and then it and Lani burst into flames.

* * *

 

Carl didn’t remember being thrown back, or blacking out, but he must’ve, because when he opened his eyes and lifted his head, he felt heavy and weak. He couldn’t see Lani well. There was so much fire. Eating her up. The whole world, burning white and red. And Lani was right in the middle of it, small and charred and Carl didn’t blink or look away he just _saw_.

He got up, dazed. He might've been crying. His face felt hot and wet. His body felt hot and wet. Was he on fire, too? It was hard to tell. It was hard to think. He felt ill. He felt like he was dying.

He staggered towards home, tripping up the steps and throwing up as he made it to the door. He wiped his face. He went inside. It was dark and quiet, and Carl felt afraid. He drew his gun.

“Oliver?” His voice felt weak and throaty. “Oliver...”

He didn’t so much see the figure but _feel_ it, and before he could react he was feeling something worse—something hard and heavy striking his arms and chest. Carl hit the floor, gun clattering out of reach.

He saw Negan standing over him, closing in. Carl clambered for his gun. It was kicked away, and a gloved hand seized his shoulder.

“This shit isn't funny anymore,” Negan said, his weight slouching over Carl’s back as he took his hunting knife, carving knife, and even his hat; all tossed to the side. Negan let up, allowing Carl to face him. “Don't make me do this now, kid. Haven't you figured it out yet? I got plans for you. Big plans. But right now, more importantly, I got _questions..._ ”

Carl staggered to his feet, heaving his breath.

“Why would you volunteer to die?” Negan asked. “What fucked you up so bad you’d choose that?”

Carl swallowed. “I'm—”

“You know what,” Negan cut him off, “I blame your dad. Bet you do, too, huh? Ah, don’t worry. Told you before and I'll tell you again: I like you. I really fucking do. Yeah. Few years from now, you’re gonna be one of my top guys!”

Carl rushed forward and shoved, hoping to catch Negan by surprise, but he was pushed aside like a small dog, landing in a messy lump before the coffee table, hunched and clutching his stomach. He gagged and choked and spit-up more vomit.

“Jesus, kid. Look at you,” Negan complained. “You're weak. Your father's raising a weak boy! But I'll fix you. I’ll even keep your boyfriend around for you, if he follows the rules. If not... well...” Negan whistled. “I’ll make _you_ kill him myself. That'll break you, put you in line, huh?”

“Stop talking!”

“Keep dreaming.”

With a roar, Carl snatched the hourglass paperweight and swung around at Negan’s face, connecting to cheek-bone. Negan tripped back and Carl snatched Lucille right out of his hands, like it was easy.

“Don't you touch her—”

Carl hit Negan as hard as he could, barbs and wood crashing against his shoulder, tearing his leather jacket and sending Negan reeling back into the chairs around the table. Carl was going to do it again, but Negan’s foot connected with Carl’s face, knocking him back into the coffee table. Carl lost the wind in his lungs. His mouth bled. He could barely lift his own head, but was able to glance up at Negan standing over him, Lucille in hand, and then—

A ukulele shattered across the back of Negan’s skull.

Negan crashed to the floor, limp and immense and out cold, and Oliver stood there, looking wild. He dropped the neck of his instrument and it landed before him with a _brang!_ and clatter.

“I was hiding...” he muttered, hobbling to pick up Carl’s hat. “Heard him come in... talking about... spaghetti.”

Carl made some small noise and Oliver seemed to snap inside his own head again. He hurried to Carl’s side and helped him up as best he could.

They stood over Negan for a moment, not sure what to do. Carl looked at Oliver, who was glaring down at Negan, his face hard and still.

“We should go,” Carl painted, taking Oliver's wrist, “before they find us.”

“We should kill him,” Oliver mumbled.

“ _No_ , we have to go.”

Negan was beginning to rouse. “ _Unngh... fuck.”_

Oliver kicked him in the face, knocking him out again. Carl yanked him back, yelling, but fell when his ankle gave in.

“Come on. Please. Just _leave_ him!”

Oliver relented and helped Carl across the living room. Carl picked up all his strength, hot and sweating and trying not to cling as they got out of the house and crossed the community. They were almost at the grid, but some Saviors began chasing them and they had to stop.

Carl pulled Oliver behind him, taking out another smoke bomb.

“On the ground, kid!”

The street filled with fog and fizzling and Carl and Oliver disappeared inside of it. Oliver went down into the sewer first, gripping hard to Carl as he did. Once on his feet, Carl passed down the crutch, hurried in, and shut the grid.

“Shh, shh...” Oliver said. Carl watched the two Saviors rush past above them, and then the boys were alone.

Carl climbed down, staggering on the last step. He got up. Oliver let him pass over his crutch, even his beanie, but he didn’t let him walk away because Carl felt a tug on his sleeve.

“Oliver... please, we’re almost there.”

Oliver didn’t budge. Carl kept his back to him, his head down, eyes shut, stretching and stretching time until...

“I know,” Oliver said.

Carl didn’t say anything.

“ _I know,_ ” Oliver said again. He waited a long time after saying it, until finally— _finally_ —he said, “I know... _you’re bit._ ”

Carl inhaled. He turned. He saw Oliver shudder and drop his crutch. It hit the grey-water with a clatter and a splash.

“Oliver...”

“Ever since we got back,” he whispered. “All day, you... you’ve been _avoiding_ me.”

Carl just looked at him, wishing beyond wishing he could pause time forever.

“Show me,” Oliver said, rushing on and on. “Show—”

“Please.”

“ _Show it to me!_ ”

Oliver glared Carl down until Carl couldn’t look him in the face anymore. He looked at the sewer floor. He sucked on his lip. Then he lifted his shirt and pulled back the bandage on his stomach.

The bite was shallow, barely a scratch. The look on Oliver’s face was like he’d been insulted. Carl felt himself saying, “I’m sorry,” a lot. “I’m sorry. I... I’m sorry,” and Oliver didn’t seem to know what to do. He didn’t seem inside his own head. He just kept on watching. Like he was waiting for this to stop and go away.

Carl knew he couldn’t start crying, not in front of Oliver, not in front of anyone. He turned away to wipe his face, and when he turned back, he inhaled steeply and touched Oliver’s shoulder. “C'mon—”

Oliver shook him off.

Oliver gripped his hair in his hand.

“Please.” Carl touched Oliver's chest this time. “Please, Oliver, you can’t—”

But again, Oliver shoved him away, stumbling back and tripping over. And then Oliver just knelt there, staring into the space between them. Carl scowled at him. He’d spent all day trying to ignore it. Pretending it was far away. But now he felt it. All at once. All the fear and the loss and the anger. He wanted to yell at him. He wanted to lash out. He wanted so many different things to happen and not happen instead of this, but this was happening, and Carl doubled over into the sewer wall and threw up.

“Please, Oliver...” he sobbed. “I’m not strong enough on my own.”

Oliver looked at him, eyes big with horror. But he seemed to be listening because he got up. Carl got up, too, refusing Oliver’s help. He felt dizzy. He stepped over to the wall and caught his balance.

Very quietly, Oliver asked, “Are you okay?” And Carl shook his head, swallowing. Oliver bit his mouth, like he’d expected a different answer. He stepped over. He used his sleeve to wipe Carl’s face. He brushed back his hair with his fingers. Carl couldn’t look at him.

“Come on,” Oliver whispered, eyes full, “you’ve got a show to run.”

Carl sobbed, but picked up his head and nodded.

“Thank you,” he said.

Oliver wiped his own face on his shoulder and retrieved his crutch from the mucky sewer floor. As they turned, they heard something coming and drew their guns.

Daryl rounded the corner, crossbow drawn, his old vest back on his shoulders. He grunted.

“Hey...”

“You two okay?”

They didn’t nod. Carl shuffled his feet and swallowed.

“No,” he answered, voice cracking. “I’m bit.”

Carl watched Daryl’s face turn soft, like someone had pulled the fur back on a big hairy dog. He looked Carl up and down for a while, biting his mouth tight into a line.

“When it happen?” he asked finally.

“This morning.”

“Oliver?”

“He’s okay. He’s...” Carl looked at him. He had to start over. “He’s going to be okay.”

Daryl and Carl just looked at each other then, some big amount of _feeling_ blocking up the whole sewer.

Carl said, “There’s still time.”

“Yeah there is,” Daryl said back, and seemed to grow to normal size again. “C’mon.” He chucked his chin, lugged Oliver together under his arm, and the boys followed his lead deep into the sewer.

All of Alexandria was already there, except Carl’s parents. Daryl took them to the edge of the group, towards the end of the sewer hallway where they decided to sit. It felt like the second Carl did sit, however, that his fever took hold of him, digging deep into his bones.

News spread quickly, and he was polite enough to listen to the few words of condolence across the sewer. He found it kind of ironic, if anything. He made jokes that Oliver didn’t have to fight over flannel shirts anymore, that he could get away with hoarding all the books he wanted from now on, that he could even have his Stetson hat, if he wanted it. Oliver tried to laugh, but mostly he just did that thing that looked like something between smiling and dying inside, and eventually Carl gave up trying to cheer him up. He was too exhausted. Every minute that passed, he knew he was getting weaker, and that Oliver was seeing that happen. But he was glad that the end of the sewer gave him some privacy, at least. He didn’t have to preform too much. He was allowed to let his guard down, to feel himself slip into long, drowsy quiets for enough time to start feeling a little less, _and a little less..._ until Oliver would squeeze his fingers, all choked up, and ask him not to sleep yet.

At some point, Carl’s father and Michonne returned. His dad didn’t notice them at the end of the sewers at first. His mind seemed busy noticing everything else, like the fact that Dwight was among them now, and why some others weren’t. He stopped longest on Siddiq, however. Carl was glad. He was stretching the moments out again, like before, like time was an elastic band and the longer it stretched the longer it wasn't real, until finally...

“I brought him here,” Carl whispered.

Slowly, Rick turned from Siddiq.

“That’s how it happened.”

And then it was real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was The Gal from Joe's by Etta Jones. And there was a season 2 throwback from when Shane told Rick he was raising a weak boy.
> 
> Least he ain't dead yet, folks.
> 
> In all seriousness though, Carl's a great character, and he did good.
> 
> (I honestly don't know if I need to say this or not, but...) Basically, I know I'm going to lose a lot of readers soon. That's chill. Those of you who were here for the romance (which, in all 138 chapters so far, has featured in less than a third of them, sorry) will probably go, so yeah, it's been fun, thanks, and for those of you who might stick around a bit longer to see what happens next, however few, it means a lot, more than I can really express. I like writing Oliver, so I'm just going to keep going.
> 
> Do with that information what you will.
> 
> And if there are any questions, asks are open on Tumblr :)  
> my blog: notmuchmoretosay (it used to be just for stale M&M's but now it's just memes and dumb shit so you gotta search oliver and whatever else in the tags)
> 
> Happy reading.


	140. Season 8 ~ Honor: The One Where He Dies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> See title lol

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: again, see title.
> 
> FAQs (some a little overdue):
> 
> 1\. Will you save Coral? lol no  
> 2\. Will you end this after Carl dies? my brain won't let me yet  
> 3\. What's gonna happen now? Where will you take/What will you do with Oliver after this? a lot; hoping he can take over some of carl's plot lines, unless somebody else in the show does, or I just want to change something. I loved the negan cell arc, but disliked the lydia one—she's a little too damsel in distress for me, so if she comes in, she'll have some change-ups.  
> 4\. Tf is up with you and Weird Al? it's not me it's literally Carl's cannon favourite music for some reason okay?
> 
> A/N: Sorry for the slow updates. I started writing a book, hoping to get the manuscript finished before 2019 (at 21,000 words of 100,000 so far). Along with that, also slowly getting through my uni work, so I have to pace myself—writing Stale M&M's is still like my reward for doing stuff I have to prioritise first, so it's always the one I'm making the least progress on. Anyway, hope you enjoy the chapter, despite the subject matter. Feel free to ask any questions, here or on tumblr (notmuchmoretosay) or Twitter (notmuchmore2say) or even Instagram (gaellikestoswim).

“I got bit.”

Despite Carl saying it, Rick didn’t seem to understand him. He kept shaking his head and saying things like, “I don’t...” “How...” “No, this isn’t...” “This is them.” “They—They don’t...” “It wasn’t...”

And Carl just said, “Dad. It’s alright. I got bit.”

He pulled out some folded pieces of paper.

“I wasn’t sure you’d make it back before, but, just in case. I wanted to make sure I was able to say goodbye.”

He handed them to Michonne. Her face was wet and dripping.

Rick said, “No.”

“Dad,” Carl whispered. “I got bit.”

It seemed to sink in that time.

“I was bringing someone back,” Carl went on. “His name’s Siddiq. We saw him at that gas station before. It wasn’t the Saviors. It just happened. I got bit.”

Oliver hadn’t moved from his side. He hadn’t spoken. It was becoming very difficult to follow the conversations going on around him. At some point, Siddiq offered the stretcher he was sitting on, and Rick and Michonne helped Carl onto it. He was hurting a lot, and the colour that had left his face before was now growing grey and purple around his eyes.

Siddiq offered medicine for the fever.

“It helped for my mom and dad,” he said. “Please take them? Your son. He should have them.”

Rick did.

“You’re a doctor?”

“Yeah.”

“Your name’s Siddiq.”

“Yes.”

Rick turned to Carl. “Did you know he was a doctor? Is that why you brought him back?”

“He wasn’t going to make it alone,” Carl replied. “He needed us.” He took a breath. It wheezed. “That’s why.”

Rick nodded and glanced at Oliver, then Carl. He said something but another explosion went off outside. The sewers shuddered. Parts of the ceiling began to crumble in. Rick dove forward and protected Carl’s face. The dust made him cough and choke.

“Water,” Michonne said, “give him water.”

Oliver had some next to him but didn’t notice it until she snatched it and handed it to Rick.

“Slowly... slowly...” Carl swallowed and gasped for breath, his throat rattling. Oliver flinched.

Michonne looked ragged and out of breath. She nodded at Oliver, as if to make sure he knew she wasn’t angry at him. He looked away from her. She got up and walked away, straight for Dwight, who she seized by the collar and pushed against the wall.

“Make it stop!” she ordered. “Make them stop!”

“I can’t...”

She winced. “You can. You’re one of them, they’ll listen to you... _please._ ” Another explosion went off. “Please.”

Rosita took Michonne’s shoulder and that seemed to be enough. They spoke to Dwight about Hilltop, about getting everybody there, but Dwight explained that the Saviors were still out there looking in the woods.

“They saw us go west,” Tara said. “So we won’t go west.”

“Your best chance is to stay here until they’re gone,” Dwight insisted.

“No,” Daryl said. “They find us here, we’re dead.”

“They’re almost gone,” Dwight said. “They gotta be. It wasn’t about destroying this place. They don’t have the ammo for that. _After_ they let up. _After_ they’re gone. _That’s_ when we go.”

They agreed, and Michonne returned. She sat by Carl’s side and stroked his cheek with her fingertips, and he just looked up at her, frowning a little.

“You left,” he whispered. “You were supposed to be resting.”

“I’m not tired.”

“Yeah.” He smiled. “You look great.”

Michonne almost laughed, and as they talked, they cried, and then Judith was crying and Oliver realised he was outside, alone. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed. The sun was up now, blocked by the smoke still burning from Alexandria into the early morning sky. Oliver thought he remembered Daryl at some point in the night, carrying Judith away, telling others to let Oliver be, so they did and now he was knelt here in the ash.

He rubbed his face dry, afraid that he’d been left alone, again, like that day at the candy store, or at the suburb. His breath felt heavy and thick. He was afraid Carl was already gone, and he’d run out of time — but then he heard his voice, calling out to him.

“Is Oliver up there... is he?”

“Yeah, yeah, I see him.”

Oliver turned to the sewer grid. It was open and Michonne was climbing out of it.

“You got him?” Rick asked from underground.

“Yeah. You push, I’ll pull. One, two, three!”

Michonne pulled Carl out of the sewer in one, hard, smooth wrench. Carl collapsed into her, but once he caught sight of Oliver he reached out for him. Oliver stared, his mouth dry. He was in too much pain and shock to get up and take his hand, so Carl withdrew his own.

“Here,” Rick said, above ground now as he took under Carl’s arm.

“No,” Carl said, “get him. He can’t walk.”

Rick did as he was told, taking under Oliver’s arm. Michonne helped Carl across Alexandria, Rick and Oliver following. Oliver could hear the noises Carl was making; the mumbling and moaning and asking Michonne to slow down.

“No,” Rick grunted, “there’s our house up ahead.”

“I can't,” Carl whispered. “I can't.”

Michonne stopped. Rick dragged himself and Oliver around to face them. The exchange between the four of them was awful, but it was silent, at least, and was over quickly. They went to the church instead. It was closer. Near the alter, with the colourful glass windows behind them, now shattered and stained with soot, Rick set Oliver down on the floor and helped Michonne lay Carl down beside him.

Carl was out of breath, wincing. He turned to his father.

“Thanks for...” he swallowed, “for getting me here.”

“Well,” Rick said, “I’m sorry, I just—I didn’t want you out there.”

“No,” Carl said. “No, for getting me _here._ For... For making me so I can be...” He looked at Oliver, then back at his father. “...who I wound up.”

Rick was shaking.

“Back at the prison,” Carl explained, shutting his eyes for a moment to swallow again, “when we got attacked, there was a kid. A little older than me. He had a gun. He was... He was starting to put it down, and I—I sh—I shot him. He was giving it up and I... I just shot him.”

Again, he looked at Oliver.

“I think about him, what I did to him and how... how _easy_ it was to just kill him.”

Rick leaned forward. “No, no. What happened. What you’ve _lost._ All those things you had to... All those things you had to do. You were just a boy.”

“And you saw it,” Carl said. “What it did. How... How easy it got. That’s why you changed. You brought those people from Woodbury and... we all lived together. We were enemies. But you put away your gun. You did it, so I could change — so... I could be who I am now.

What you did. How you stopped fighting. It was right.

It still is.

It can be like that again. _You_ can still be like that again.”

Rick dipped his head.

“I can’t be who I was,” he said. “It’s different now.”

“You can’t kill all of them, Dad. There’s gotta be something after, for you, for them. There’s gotta be something after. I know you can’t see it yet— how it could be. But I have... You have a beard. It’s... bigger, greyer. Michonne’s happy. Judith is older... and Oliver? You’re showing her the songs we listen to together.”

He took a steep breath.

“Alexandria’s bigger,” he said. “There’s... new houses, crops, and people working, everybody living, helping everybody else live. You can still be who you were. That’s how it could be. It could.”

“Carl... it was all for you, right from the start. Back in Atlanta. The farm. Everything I did, it was for you. And then at the prison it was for you and Judith. It still is. It’s gonna be. And nothing, _nothing,_ is gonna change that.”

“I want this for you, Dad.”

“I will make it real. Carl, I promise. I’ll make it real.” Carl nodded. His father took his hand and kissed it. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you. A father’s job is to protect his son.”

Carl shook his head. “No. It’s just to love.”

Carl closed his eyes and reached down to his holster.

He took hold of his gun.

“No,” Rick moaned. “No.”

Oliver stared.

“Carl, no,” Michonne said, “it—it should be—”

“I know,” Carl whispered. “ _I know._ Somebody who loves them. But you can’t do it yourself, and I still can. I grew up. I have to do this. _Me._ ”

He held his breath.

He said to her, “I love you.”

Michonne broke up crying. “I love you, too.”

Carl blinked away tears and turned his head to Rick. “I love you, Dad.”

“I love you, Carl. I love you so much.” Rick leaned down, tears rolling, and kissed his forehead. “I’ll make it real. I will.”

After that, Carl asked them to wait outside the church. Michonne took Rick’s hand, and as she bent down to help Oliver, too, Carl whispered, “No, no. He can stay... if that’s okay?”

Oliver shut his eyes and nodded.

He felt Carl touch the back of his hand, gently, waiting for him to choose to take it and Oliver did. It felt cold and he held it tightly, and as he sat there beside him, the world didn’t feel real.

“I...” He cleared his throat. He looked at the floor. “I don’t know what to say.”

Carl just shook his head. “Then don’t — don't say anything. It was never your strong suit anyway.”

Oliver tried to prove him wrong, but his throat closed up and the tears came too fast for him to wipe away. Carl watched him until he calmed down, and when he spoke, his weak voice was all shaken up and broken.

“It’s okay,” he whispered. “I know everything you want to say to me, even... even if you don’t know yet. If you mean it... I know.”

Oliver felt helpless.

“I’m sorry about Lani,” Carl told him. “There was nothing I could do.”

Oliver couldn’t meet his eyes.

“Hey,” Carl whispered, “there was nothing you could have done either. Not for her. Not for me. It happened. It all... _happened._ And... I’m sorry for avoiding you, after. I knew you would have noticed sooner. I just wanted it to be a good day.”

He was so competitive, even now in this, looking up at Oliver in his subtle, smug way, like he was still winning.

“I had a good day, Oliver,” he said. “I had a really good day.”

Oliver was glad, and amazed. He held his breath. Carl squeezed his hand, gently, then lifted it to his mouth and kissed it.

He shut his eyes.

“I am going to miss so much of you.”

Hearing Carl tell him that made Oliver’s chest collapse in on itself, as if the sky had crashed down on top of them. Oliver didn’t know the feeling, but he almost couldn’t stand it. He pushed his face into Carl’s shirt, and Carl held him, and they cried together, both their sobs wracking them like thunderstorms passing between chests.

“Could you...” Carl blinked away his tears, looking somewhat embarrassed, or even ashamed. “Could you look away, when it happens? Could you?” Suddenly, his shame turned to fear, flashing in his face and voice, but he buried it quickly. “I — I don’t want you to see me like that.”

Oliver nodded and nodded and nodded.

“I love you,” he gasped out. He begged it. “I love you, man.”

“I know...” Carl shut his eyes, then looked up at him, tears spilling. “I love you, too, Oliver. I love you, too, _so much._ ”

Oliver held him again, until eventually, Carl asked him to lean up. He raised his Beretta. He had to use both hands; they were shaking and Oliver had to keep them steady for him.

Carl watched him, and then he stared up through the burned-out roof, up up up to the sky. He took a deep breath. And then, very calmly, he whispered, “Goodnight, love,” and with one, small shudder, like he might’ve thought of one last thing to say, he pulled the trigger.

A shatter in time.

A fracture in space.

And Oliver never un-felt it.

* * *

 

_You mistrusted what will bleed_  
_Will not die, will not leave_  
_The heart was first in that line_  
_Though it was under those conditions_  
_We were free_  
_Under those conditions_  
_Of pain that would not leave_  
_You were all I’ve ever trusted_  
_You're self-made_  
_You made it on hard work and risk_  
_How will I live on without you?_  
_And I can tell by that look_  
_You were thinking the same thing, too_  
_If this can't last, just what can last?_  
_Then it's lights out after this kiss_  
_Then time can't torment us_  
_This will have to serve_  
_Goodnight, lover_  
_Wherever you are..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was Goodnight Lover by Ohia, but in this it's more like a poem I guess, but I also guess that's kind of all a song is. Eh. Also took a little inspiration from the comics from when Andrea died.
> 
> Some shit before you go.
> 
> Basically I've been writing this for 4 years, which means a lot of people have come and go throughout. Most of you never leave anything but a number on a statistic, which I still appreciate, but some of you leave a comment, or a PM, and through that some of you became my friends. I'll get a message a month, or one every few days, or from a small handful of you, hundreds a day, and there are some of you who I don't speak to at all anymore. And that's okay. I just wanted you to know that whether it was or is zero messages or a thousand, I've grown up with you, so yeah, just wanted to say thanks for that, even if you don't think I mean it.
> 
> Happy reading.


	141. Season 8 ~ The Lost and the Plunderers: Failed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After.

Oliver knelt there, alone. His ears were ringing; not from the sound of the bullet, it had been silenced, but from the horror. He knew the feeling. The feeling when someone dies in your presence. How they were there and then they just... weren’t. Still, it got him every time. His hand was wet and splattered and shaking. He didn’t let go of the gun, or the cold, heavy fingers under his own, slipping, so he held them a little tighter as not to let them drop... but he did glance down.

_Oh.._

He shut his eyes quickly.

_Ohh..._

Someone came in. Oliver didn’t turn or look or move or breathe, even when he heard the growling stumbling up the church steps inside — heard it and heard something else split it open, and there was sobbing, and _moaning_. His own? No. Rick’s. And then someone was holding his face.

“Look at me,” Michonne whispered, “hey, look at me, Oliver.”

He did. She kept his face still.

“Just look at me.”

_Okay... okay... okay._

She seemed to find it hard not to look at Carl's body beside him, tears streaking down her winced up laugh-lines. She wiped Oliver’s face and blood came away on her fingers. She took off her headband and used it for his hand. Rick was doing something, still moaning — Oliver saw him stumble off somewhere across the church, into another room, and then he came back with a white sheet folded up in his arms.

“Here,” he sobbed, “for... for my... my boy.”

“Yeah,” she whimpered. “Let me help you.”

_Okay... okay._

After Carl's body was covered, Oliver was allowed to look again, and sometime later, he was outside surrounded by burning skies and buildings, sitting in the graveyard. He had a corner of the blooded sheet between his fingers, playing with it. Rick and Michonne were digging, and then they were crying, and then they were filling, and Oliver was watching the clouds and smoke, picking dirt out from under his fingernails. The grass was wet, soaking his clothes and cast.

Sometime later Rick came back from somewhere. Oliver hadn’t even noticed he’d left, or that he’d been alone at the grave.

“Come on,” Rick was saying to him, “gotta get you in the truck. It’s not safe here.”

Oliver wondered where Michonne was but was already in the back of the truck alone before he thought to ask. He was missing time, skipping from one moment to several moments later, losing bits in between because now there was a walkie-talkie in his hand and there were walkers outside the back windows.

The gazebo was burning.

Rick and Michonne were there then, stuffing duffel bags in around Oliver’s legs. “Hey... Oliver?” Michonne said — he barely heard her, but she must’ve figured out what he was looking at because in this horrible, sad whisper, she said, “He used to sit on the roof.”

“We have to go,” Rick said.

Michonne snatched a fire-hydrant from the truck and ran for the gazebo. Rick cursed, grabbed another hydrant and shut the truck doors. Oliver was in too much pain to sit up and look through the windows, so he just listened to the foaming and the growling and the flames.

“Leave it, Michonne! It’s gone. _Michonne!_ ”

They came back, and they drove away, and Alexandria Safe Zone was lost to the dead and the gone.

* * *

 

Oliver kept catching Rick glancing at him through the rear-view mirror. He would be wiping his eyes or squinting and Oliver would look down at his feet.

Finally, Rick spoke up.

“What do you think he meant? Did he want us to stop fighting the Saviors, just... surrender to Negan?”

“We could pull over?” Michonne said, her voice high and scratchy. “We could read what he wrote—”

“No,” Rick cut her off. “Not yet. Not me.”

Oliver saw that Rick was blinking a lot, and that the skin around his eyes were red and swollen. He caught Oliver looking this time, cleared his throat, and threw a thumb over his shoulder.

“Take your inhaler,” he said, “you're not sounding too good.”

Déjà vu punched Oliver across the gut. He shut his eyes, pushing the memories of Patrick’s death away as he searched his pockets, coming up dry.

“There are some spares,” Rick said, “in the orange duffel.”

Oliver searched, found them, and as he took his Ventolin, he heard Michonne say, “Rick... Carl — He wrote a letter to Negan.”

Rick inhaled. “I need to talk to Jadis.”

“What?”

“They have weapons, people.”

“But, Hilltop... Oliver needs—”

“We can’t just give it all up.”

Michonne watched him. “Why now?”

“They went with me to the Sanctuary. The Saviors saw us there. They’re gonna be a target too.” Rick looked at her briefly from the road. “We still need them. They’re ours. Not theirs.”

And then Oliver was alone in the truck again, waiting outside Jadis’ junkyard for Rick and Michonne to return. He felt numb. There, but not really... _there_. He heard gunshots and worry drove him mad, but with a broken leg and only one arm, he wasn’t able to do anything but keep on waiting.

“ _Hi?_ ”

Oliver startled, looking around. He remembered the talkie. It was buried under some junk he’d moved about in search for his inhaler, so it took a few minutes to find it.

“ _It’s me,_ ” Enid said. “ _Pick up..._ ”

Oliver’s voice didn’t come when he pressed the receiver, so the air fell into static.

“ _Come on, I can hear you pressing the PTT button..._ ”

He stopped and pushed the talkie away, shutting his eyes and holding his face in his hand. The tears ran down his wrist.

“ _Please..._ ” Enid sounded sad. “ _I could really talk to you guys right now... I could really do with my friends—_ ”

Oliver switched the channel back to the original one the previous owner had it at. He couldn’t stop the crying. He couldn’t stop how it felt to just dissolve into the tears, drowning in them like a flood. He couldn’t stand it. There was a loud scream deep inside his head. He tried to shut his eyes and sleep through it, but it got louder, and Oliver cried harder, and he didn’t know for how long the noise or the crying lasted, just that he’d stopped by the time Rick and Michonne finally returned.

Michonne opened the back, startling him. They’d been so quiet. She asked if he was okay and he looked at Rick, watching him climb into the driver’s seat. His hair was wet with sweat, dripping, and he looked ill. Michonne said they found Jadis, alone, that the Saviors had killed her people, and that now they were leaving without her.

Michonne got in the front, and as they drove, Oliver realised she and Rick weren’t talking to each other.

Rick was fidgeting.

“I shot above her head,” he said quietly, throwing a hand up, “I just wanted her gone. Look, I saw her, she _made_ it. She ran into an empty alley just before I left. I didn’t want her dead, I just... wanted her gone.”

It explained the gunshots.

“Feels like what Carl was talking about,” Michonne whispered, “what we should do, when we have a choice.”

Rick pulled over.

He groaned.

He said, “Um... I need... I need a second.”

“It’s fine,” Michonne said, and meant it.

Rick switched off the engine and sat there holding the letters for a minute. He handed Oliver his letter in exchange for the walkie-talkie, then took his own letter and Negan's with him outside, strolling a few hundred yards away across the grass. Michonne watched him.

Not ready to read his letter yet, Oliver folded it and put it in a duffel, then sat back and listened to the trees rustling outside. Michonne seemed to accept his decision, because she smiled at him. Her smile shook. She looked at her own letter but didn’t read it.

“Give me Negan,” they both heard from outside. It was hard to hear the whole conversation. Rick was pacing. He told Negan that Carl was dead, and that he write letters asking for peace.

“But it's too late for that. Even if we wanted a deal now, it doesn't matter. I'm gonna kill you...”

_“How did it happen?”_

“What?”

_“How did he die? Was it us? Was it the grenades? The fire?”_

“It wasn't you! Carl went out to help someone. And he got bit.”

_“God damn it... Shit. I, um... I am sorry. You know, I wanted him to be part of things. I had plans. He... That kid... That kid was the future.”_

“The only future is one where you're dead.”

Rick had paced too far to hear what Negan was saying. He came back a little.

_“You set this course, Rick. Who's next?”_

_“_ You are!”

_“No. But someone is. You see, I stop people from dying. I am the answer. Now, it may have taken a hard lesson for you to hear it, but you should hear it now. It's time. Do not let any more of your shit decisions cost you to lose anyone else you love. That garbage that sticks with you. Forever.”_

He paced too far away again. Oliver heard nothing but the last part.

 _“You failed,”_ Negan said. _“You failed as a leader, and most of all, Rick, you failed as a father. Just give up. Give up, because you have already lost.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Congrats for reading on, my dudes. Much appreciated.
> 
> Happy reading.


	142. Season 8 ~ Dead or Alive Or: Clockwork

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took a bit, I caught flu from my partner and I’ve got a bunch of deadlines. Enjoy!

Oliver didn’t remember much of the journey to Hilltop, just that they’d had to walk for some of it, which was awful. But they’d arrived finally and then Oliver was inside the infirmary trailer, sitting on a metal chair with Siddiq crouched before him, already half way through removing his cast.

“What’s taking you so long?” another doctor asked him, frowning from another unconscious patient who she was dealing with.

“I’m just trying to be careful,” Siddiq said, inhaling.

“Just cut it off already,” she said, “we don’t have all day.”

Still, Siddiq hesitated. He cut an odd shape, quickly, then passed up part of the bandage he’d cut off. It was a small drawing of a pair of stag antlers which Carl had drawn at some point in the last few weeks, with his signature under it: _‘with love, Carl’_ —it was a sickly, off-white colour now, and smelled foul, but Oliver put it away in his pocket anyway, feeling his face flume red and his eyes well.

“Thank you,” he meant to say, but mouthed it instead.

Siddiq looked relieved.

The other doctor shook her head.

Once the cast was removed, Siddiq asked Oliver to try not to move his leg while he cleaned it for him with soap and a sponge—the urge to wriggle was difficult to ignore, since Oliver hadn’t bent his knee in a month. The other doctor kept passing criticising comments across the room about how Siddiq was doing it, but at least didn't come over and do it herself. Then, finally, Siddiq was done, and had applied a new cast; shorter so it stopped just under the knee, and Oliver was allowed to move. His knee made an audible crack when he tucked it up to his chest. It felt so beautiful he groaned. Siddiq grinned. The grin went away quickly.

“Oliver, I...”

Oliver reached for his crutches at the same time Siddiq attempted to speak, and even though he had, Oliver pointed at the crutches again, and with a small falter, Siddiq handed them over.

He shook his head.

“Thanks for coming,” he said. “Let me know if you need anything else. You have medication, yes?”

Oliver nodded. He found it too difficult to look Siddiq in the eye as he saw him out. Michonne was waiting with Bean. As the sun hit him, Oliver felt dizzy as the day’s travelling caught up with him. Michonne took under his arm and helped him back across the Hilltop. They were headed to Barrington House and Michonne was explaining that she’d just learned Dwight went back to the Saviours, that Tara says he did it to save her and Daryl thinks he did it to save himself:—“It sounds to me like it was both,” she said, and Oliver was listening, but then he had to stop and throw up next to a trailer. Michonne held back his hair. Bean tried to fuss. She pushed him away.

Oliver spit and wiped his mouth on his shoulder. He stood up, his leg stiff. Michonne hugged him. He hugged her back.

“Ma’am...” Jerry called out, appearing out the trailer door. He saw Oliver, too, and with a big, heavy smile, said, “Little dude. It’s great to see you.”

Oliver looked at his feet, shrugging something he hoped looked reciprocative. Jerry sighed, and then Henry was joining them from the trailer, a plate of something that didn’t look touched in his hand.

“Look,” Jerry said quietly, “we heard what happened. Sorry.”

Michonne inhaled and nodded. Oliver looked at Bean, who was wagging his tail. And then Morgan was there.

“Oliver,” he said. “Michonne. Hello." He looked stern and tired. “I was looking for Henry...”

“He’s here,” Jerry chirped. “I made him a PB and J sandwich.”

Henry was pulling it apart. Jerry made a face.

Morgan pointed at Oliver. “Carol’s here,” he said. “She’s over by the stockade, where we’re keeping all the prisoners.”

“The ones from the satellite outpost?” Michonne asked.

Morgan nodded, and Oliver recalled both Maggie’s letter and Enid’s speech over the radio about bad eggs.

“What happened at the Kingdom?” Michonne asked next.

“The Saviors came for the King, last night...” Morgan stopped and glanced at the trailer, to Henry, who was taking the first reluctant bite out of his sandwich. “ _We..._ stopped them, and we got everybody else here.”

“We’re all here,” Jerry said, beaming. “All of us.”

_You’re wrong,_ Oliver thought, but bit his tongue.

Morgan was watching him. He had a stern grimace on his face, as if he were angry. “Go talk to y’momma, boy,” he said.

Oliver left, crutching across Hilltop with Michonne’s help. There was a heavy fog drifting slowly through Virginia, which, Oliver guessed, was probably why he hadn’t noticed the stockade yet. Then again, he hadn’t been very good at taking in a lot of detail since the morning, and was still experiencing time-gaps.

Bean didn’t like the stockade and wandered off with Michonne when she left Oliver to speak with Carol. She was sitting on a tree-log, a few hundred feet across from the prisoners and their enclosure, keeping watch. Oliver stood beside her, squinting through the mist at the tall, wooden posts connected with several horizonal rows of barbed wire.

Jared was inside, as ratty and smug as always.

“Oh, not you again?!” he said.

Oliver flipped him the bird.

Carol swatted his hand down.

“Really?” Jared went on, addressing her now. “The kid’s still kicking?” He went on complaining in the background, but she ignored him. Oliver sat beside her. For a while, they didn’t speak, just watched the bad eggs.

“Are you okay?” Carol asked.

Oliver didn’t respond. Didn’t even look at her. But out the corner of his eye, he saw her shaking her head. She sighed.

“...I know you’re not.”

Oliver gave her a look, wishing she’d shut up. She threw her hands up, as if to surrender, all stubborn and frustrated and _Carol._

“Fine, don’t talk to me,” she bartered. “You don’t have to talk to me. Look, I just... I know we don’t have the most... healthy relationship anymore, but—” To calm her down, Oliver tipped to the side and put his head on her shoulder, and then she seemed to understand that he wasn’t angry at her.

They didn’t have to talk after that.

* * *

 

Later, Oliver woke up inside Jesus’ trailer, curled up on the couch and buried in several tatty blankets and lumpy pillows. The room smelled familiar and nostalgic, like sweaty feet and early morning head-squashes. He looked around and saw Bean sleeping on the floor across from him. Enid was sitting at the table, reading something. Her letter. Oliver watched her. When she was done, she held the paper for a minute, watching the window. The sun was beginning to set, glowing dull and mouldy-grey. Very carefully, she folded the letter up and placed it on the table, and then, all at once, she began to cry. She buried her face in her hands and held her mouth to keep quiet. Oliver felt tears running across the bridge of his nose and wiped them.

Enid looked at him.

She got up.

Like clockwork, she crossed the room to him and he opened his arms, allowing her to fit into his front along the couch, his face in her collar and her arms around his head and shoulders. They both cried. Oliver didn’t remember how long for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next one up next month. Perhaps sooner.   
> Happy reading.


	143. Season 8 ~ The Key: Weird

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Ya boi got them deadlines in whoop.

Oliver woke up after everybody else the next day. The sun shone on his face and he looked around the empty trailer, thinking about food, until he thought of yesterday, and his appetite went away.

His orange duffel bag was on the floor. He knew a lot of his things were left behind in Alexandria, and wasn’t surprised to find that most of what was in the bag belonged to Michonne and Rick, but some were his; some clothes, his old machete, and his inhalers, and his prosthetic, which he decided to wear again — he’d had enough time inside a sling. He put on some clean clothes and strapped his machete to his waste. It felt weird, having it there again. Weird, but in an okay way.

Before he left the trailer, he grabbed his beanie from inside Carl’s hat, and found his letter there, too. He put it back, grabbed his crutch, and left.

Outside, the fog from yesterday had lifted into the sky, forming thin, pale, shiny clouds over Hilltop. Oliver went to the stables, where he found Roan grazing. It was good to see him, even better when he learned that Gregory and Jared had spent all evening yesterday mucking out the stables. When he went to find Rick, he instead found Enid, Michonne and Maggie waiting up at the watch posts. Oliver waited at the bottom. When Enid came down, she told him, “Rosita’s out there — spotted something. Looks like someone’s trying to get our attention.”

They heard an engine returning and Enid went to Michonne open the gate. Rosita parked the van by the watch post, got out, and passed a letter to Maggie. “I don’t know what the hell it is.”

Maggie read it out: “ _‘If you fill the crates with food or phonograph records, I will gladly exchange it with a key to your future.’_?”

“It lists coordinates for our meeting spot,” Rosita said to her. Maggie handed the letter to Michonne, and Oliver hobbled closer to read over her shoulder.

“This isn’t the Saviors,” Michonne said. “They’d blow through the gates, make a big show.”

“I wouldn’t put nothin’ past them,” Maggie said.

“Well, if it is a trap it’s kinda obvious,” Rosita said.

“Which is what could make it a trap,” Maggie replied. She walked away.

“What if...” Michonne shook her head. “What if it’s someone who actually wants to help?”

“If someone is trying to help us and we miss out,” Maggie explained, “we miss out. If somebody's trying to kill us, we die.”

“Not if we're careful.”

“Being careful is staying here,” Enid said.

Michonne nodded. “I'll go. I'll see what's up.”

“You go, I go,” Rosita said.

“Me, too,” Oliver said, though his voice was so rusty he doubted anybody heard him, plus, Enid spoke in the same moment.

“Rick wants us here,” she said.

“I know,” Michonne told her. “But the last time we took a chance like this, it changed everything.” She looked at them all, and Oliver thought of the barn, of the look that wasn't a: _Let's-attack-that-man look._ But a: _It-seems-like-he's-an-okay-guy-to-me_ look instead. “Rick didn't agree with me then,” Michonne went on. “He may not understand me now—”

“He won't,” Maggie said.

“But eventually, he will. He will.”

“Jesus and the others have been scavenging,” Maggie told her, “and we're still starving. Maybe this person does have something that can help.”

“Then, I'm coming with you,” Enid said.

“Okay,” Maggie said, checking her ammo. She looked at Oliver. “Think I heard you volunteer, right?”

He nodded.

“Well, you can’t come with ‘cause of your leg, but you can help me while we’re gone — you  know what a phonograph is?”

He nodded again.

Maggie gestured her head. “Good. You’re going to grab records, case this is real.” She turned to Enid. “You get extra clips in case it isn't.”

* * *

Michonne, Maggie, Enid and Rosita were back within an hour, returning with another van full of supplies, which Rosita drove, and three strangers. All women. Two, twins, wore dark clothing, one in a sun hat and the other in a backwards baseball cap. Their names were Hilda and Midge. The third woman was dressed in a pale grey suit, her short hair was white, and she wore thin, round glasses and silver earrings. Her name was Georgie.

The three of them were told to wait outside the house by their van while Maggie spoke in private to Jerry about the Saviors. Oliver watched the strangers from the porch, and at some point, Georgie spoke to him.

“Might you be Oliver?” she asked. “Unless there’s another young man here with a broken leg and one arm.”

He stood and crutched to the edge of the porch, nodding.

Georgie smiled, then gestured at Enid and Rosita. “These young women tell me you are in charge of the phonographs,” she said to him, and pointed. “Now, I hope they are music. I _don't_ accept spoken word.”

Enid came up the steps, looking angry, then nudged his hook and told him to come inside with her. He did, shrugging politely to Georgie when she stuttered something to him.

“Midge, or maybe Hilda —I don’t know— thinks moisture is a made-up word,” Enid said when they were in the foyer. Oliver looked her. Even for Enid, that was mean.

They waited in the foyer across the room from Barbra and Judith, who were sitting on the couch with and a baby girl called Gracie: Gracie was found at a Savior outpost.

Judith came over and showed Oliver Patty. He held the hand-made plushy. It was wet. When he put it to his nose, he smelled soap. Enid explained: “Oh. Right. We had to wash it after Judy dropped it.”

“I didn’t drop him,” Judith said, very firmly, snatching the cat back and hugging it. It wetted her dress front. “He fell in walker water.”

Oliver pretended not to find this news concerning. He’d also never heard Judith talk about the walkers before or call them by name. He wondered who’d taught her about them, or if she’d just figured it out herself.

He watched her pull absently at a loose thread, undoing a corner of Patty’s belly patch. Some soggy stuffing poked out and Oliver reached over and tried to push it back in.

“He’s broken,” Judith said. She didn’t sound upset, just disappointed.

“That’s okay,” Barbra said across the foyer. “I’ll sew him back together later.”

Judith nodded happily and climbed up onto Oliver’s lap. He felt his eyes water, and made sure not to let her see.

Just then, Maggie and Jerry left the office.

“It’ll be dark soon,” she told him. “Get people ready. You know what to do.”

Michonne went in the office next. The door wasn’t shut, so Oliver and Enid could hear them. “We should make the deal with Georgie and let them go before the Saviors get here.”

“I can't let her go,” Maggie said, “not with what they have. I got too many mouths to feed. They've crates of food in that van. People here could be starving soon.”

Enid got up. Oliver caught her glance. Her eyes were red. And then she went inside the office. “Maggie's right,” she said. “We take their stuff. Otherwise, someone else will. Someone else will kill them. It's a miracle they're still alive, anyways. The Saviors are on their way. We're gonna fight, and some of us will die, so why should we give a shit about people who don't give a shit about themselves?!”

Judith, alarmed by Enid’s rising voice, looked around. Oliver put a hand on her head.

“I mean, out there, living like that?” Enid went on. “We take their stuff, and we use it. We stop pretending that things just work out! They don't.”

There was quiet. In it, Judith looked at Oliver, pulling a face like someone was in trouble and she was glad it wasn’t her. Oliver was too invested in the conversation to entertain her much.

“Carl rescued Siddiq,” Michonne said inside the office, “and now we have a doctor, and we have a friend... Carl was brave.”

“And now he's _dead_.” Enid’s voice broke as she said it.

“Step back,” Michonne warned.

Enid left the office, and then the building; not looking at Oliver or anyone.

“Things don't just work out,” Maggie said finally.

“No,” Michonne said. “No, they don't. But I think he knew that. He didn't give up on who Rick wanted him to be. And we can't on who he wanted us to be. _We can't.”_

Oliver and Judith watched Michonne leave then. When Judith looked at Oliver, she reached up and touched a tear under his eye. He wiped it away, apologising to her.

“Are you sad?” she asked him.

Oliver sniffed and nodded. “Yeah, Judy. I am.”

“Why?”

At this, Barbra told Oliver, “She knows what happened, she’s just so young... she doesn’t understand yet.”

Oliver nodded to her. Judith was still waiting for him to explain.

“Carl...” He held his breath and was careful to keep his face still. “Carl’s gone. And... we won’t ever see him again.”

Judith didn’t seem to like this conversation. Awkwardly, she climbed down, put her soggy Patty cat into Oliver’s lap, and walked away. Oliver had to take a minute. Eventually, he crutched across the room and handed the cat back to Barbra. He left the building. Bean was sitting outside, enjoying being petted by Midge—the sunhat. Hilda—the cap, grimaced at them. Rosita was watching over everybody, and Michonne was standing on the porch. When Oliver stood by her, she put an arm around his waist and squeezed. It felt good to lean into her.

Maggie came out after a few minutes, carrying the music records Oliver had collected while they were gone. Hilltop didn’t have much, but it was still difficult choosing what to get rid of.

“No spoken word?” Georgie asked him, putting her thumbs up. Oliver raised his eyebrows and put a thumb up, too, and she took the crates.

“I'm agreeing to your deal,” Maggie said. “We'll fill your four crates, then you can go. You're gonna want that to be sooner than later.”

“I accept. But I'm changing the terms. This one, no more. In addition, you can have a sizeable portion of my food stores. From the looks of things around here, you need it far more than we do.”

“You're giving us food? In exchange for what?”

“Records and good faith.” Georgie put her hands together. “To be clear, this isn't a gift, it's barter. I'll be back. Maybe not for a while, but I will, and by then, I expect great things. Here is the aforementioned: _Key To A Future._ ”

She presented a thick, handwritten book.

“Inside, there are handwritten plans for windmills, watermills, silos, hand-drawn schematics, guides to refining grain, creating lumber, aqueducts. A book of medieval, human achievement, so we may have a future from our past... Yes, I know, the originals are in my head, but I made photocopies. Still, it's been an evolving document since the copy shop.”

“Thank you,” Maggie said.

“Build this place up. I want those other crates filled when I get back. Cheeses for Hilda, pickles for Midge.”

“We'll see what we can do.”

“You will.”

Georgie patted her shoulder, then got in her van and left with Hilda and Midge. Michonne left to keep watch and speak to Enid. Oliver went back to his trailer. He took Carl’s hat and held it, thinking of his letter, but he put the hat back, the letter inside it, and left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy reading.


	144. Season 8 ~ Do Not Send Us Astray, Part 1: Cope

Rick, Morgan, Daryl, Bertie, Scott, were spaced out for several miles between Hilltop and the Sanctuary, and their horns went off just before dark, signalling the Saviors’ approach and allowing Hilltop around half an hour to prepare. Before he’d left, Morgan instructed Oliver to wear Benjamin’s armour, since Morgan had found a better fitting set.

Lookouts got ready, and everybody else was hustling around the house. Oliver was forced to sit out of the way, due to his leg — at least until the time came to fight. It reminded him of the office blocks, and that reminded him of sitting and listening to music, and that lead to Oliver spending a lot of time singing under his breath — he’d missed it, singing to himself; he missed music, too.

_‘Sucks we’re fresh out of Weird Al, huh?’_

“Oh. Totally, man,” Oliver said, grinning while he turned to Carl. “It’s...” — He caught himself, turned back, and tried to think of other things.

He found Juni and Ms. Hale sitting in a room with Judith and Gracie. The latter three were playing on the couch. Oliver sat with Juni on the rug because he was already reading and wouldn’t mind if Oliver didn’t try and talk to him; wouldn’t think anything of it at all, really.

Henry came over after a while. He, unlike Juni, wanted Oliver to talk to him, and patted his shoulder to initiate a conversation: “Can I ask you something?”

Oliver shrugged.

“Morgan says Gavin killed my brother,” Henry said. “Did he?”

Oliver hesitated, then nodded.

Henry sighed.

“I killed him.” His voice was very dry. “I want them all dead,” he added. Oliver looked at Henry’s stick; the end was stained red.

_‘I think about him, what I did to him and how easy it was to just kill him...’_

Oliver didn’t know what to say. Ms. Hale seemed to, and attempted to calm him. “Henry, sweetie... you’ve been through a lot, but Benjamin wouldn’t want you to—”

“What do you know what he would want?!” Henry shot at her, and then Juni signed at him to go away and Henry blew up at them all: “Why aren’t you angry?!” he screamed. “They killed your sister, too!”

Henry must’ve been talking too quickly for Juni to read his lips, because he looked confused and was starting to pick at the skin on his knuckles anxiously.

“Why aren’t you even _sad?_ ” Henry shouted.

Ms. Hale stood between them, her small, frail frame now tall and towering. “Juni doesn’t cope the same way you or I do,” she said, tears in her eyes. “He is hurting, just like you are. He’s just not showing it like you do, in crying or—”

“I’m not crying,” Henry said, even though he was.

“What I mean is...”

“I don’t _care_ what you mean!” Henry yelled. “I don’t care about his autism. I want them dead, and _you_ should, too!”

Ms. Hale watched him, her cheeks twitching. A tear ran down her face. “I think you should go and calm down, Henry,” she said. “Somewhere quiet, where you can think about what you just said.”

Henry left the room, slamming the door after himself. Juni signed something to his grandmother, but Oliver didn’t catch enough of it. Still, Ms. Hale looked at Oliver, eyes wet, and put a hand up over her lips — Juni signed: _I know you’re talking about me if you cover your mouth._

Quickly, she signed back: _It’s not about you. Look away._

Juni obeyed, and in a very anxious, desperate voice, Ms. Hale asked Oliver, “You saw her, didn’t you? Our Lani? I heard from your people: you went back for her?”

Oliver felt his stomach knot. “I did, but...”

“I know. I know... she didn’t make it,” she said, blinking back tears. “Just... she wasn’t alone, when she...”

“No,” Oliver said. “She was with Carl. He was who found her. He and Siddiq.”

“Was she wounded? Is that how she died?”

Oliver shook his head. “She was recovering. It was when the Saviors came. I don’t know what happened for sure. Nobody saw, except Carl. But, I know she was trying to help us.”

Ms. Hale nodded, wiped her eyes, then waved in front of Juni’s face to let him know he could look again. His knuckles were bleeding.

“Juni!” She grabbed his hand and tried to fuss, but he fought her, screeching and reeling away from her, so she gave up and signed him to go clean his hands.

Breathless, Juni wiped his knuckles with his sleeves, got up, and left the room. Ms. Hale glanced at Oliver again, looking drained. Oliver shrugged, hoping it seemed comforting.

“We call cope in different ways,” he said.

* * *

 

Not long later, the sky was dark and everything was ready. The horn signallers weren’t back yet, and nobody knew if they would be before the Saviors arrived, so it was mainly down to seeing what happened. Oliver waited in the foyer with everybody. Things were very quiet, until finally, he could hear engines. It had to be the Saviors’ trucks because they hit the spike-strips, and everybody heard them stop a small distance from the gate. Out on the porch, Maggie spoke into her walkie talkie.

“I wanna talk to Negan...”

_“Well, hello there, you are speaking to Negan — but my birth certificate says ‘Simon’. With whom do I have the distinct displeasure of speaking to?”_

“Maggie Rhee. The widow.”

_“Well then, hello again, widow Rhee. Allow me to offer my condolences. For what happened, and what’s about to happen. In case it’s not already plane as Hilltop potatoes, yours truly is speaking on behalf of Negan this go-around. And I assure you that the man himself personally received your care package next-day delivery. I noticed it was the box I gave you in good faith. Tricks on me. But the bill’s come due, and you and your people are gonna have to pay. Quite dearly, I’m afraid.”_

While Simon talked, Oliver kept his Thunder unholstered as the prisoners were taken out onto the porch, under guard of Leviathan and Dianne. Jared sneered at Oliver as he passed by, but another Savior prisoner —a short man with dirty-blonde hair and a beard— pushed him on.

“Sorry about him, kid,” he said, in a gentle, back-of-the-throat type of voice. “He’s all bark, no bite.”

“No,” Oliver said flatly, “he’s bite, too.”

“Yeah...” The guy’s mouth quirked. “Suppose you’re right.”

“Hey. Keep up with the rest,” Dianne ushered him outside with the others, then nodded to her son. “Lev, go inside now.”

He looked at her, weaving through the crowd of prisoners. “What?”

“I don’t want you out here when things start getting messy,” she said.

He frowned. “Mom, I’ve been fighting this whole time, with you.” She was going to argue, but he went on. “ _I know messy._ I saw it with Neil, and everything that happened at the outpost... to Ray. Lani. Ezme. Joey... I can handle it.”

Dianne glared at him, then her face turned soft that way mother’s faces do and she put her hand through his long, wavy hair. “Alright...” She sighed, then kissed his forehead. “But stay close.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said.

Maggie was still talking through her talkie: “Your thirty-eight people are alive and breathing. Turn around and leave us be, and they’ll stay that way. And if you don’t? I have thirty-eight bullets that I will personally fire into all thirty-eight.”

She must’ve handed the talkie to the gentle-voiced guy; Oliver could barely hear him: “It’s too nice a night to spend it dying slow, don’t you think, Simon?”

“So how’s this gonna go?” Maggie asked.

_“Well, Maggie Rhee. This is highly regrettable, but the way I see it, the Saviors you’re in possession of there are damaged goods. They’ve got themselves into their own pickle. This organisation prizes those who, A: avoid capture, and B: figure out their own shit when said outcome eventuates, which, in the end, is my way of saying... SCREW THEM!”_

There was some more talking, inside Hilltop and out, until finally, there was a motorbike engine and shooting, and the gate was being opened, and Daryl drove into Hilltop on his motorbike. The school bus was driven in front of the entrance after him, causing Simon to crash his truck right into the side of it.

“NOW!” Maggie roared.

The gunfire started, from people on the porch and the Saviors, and it didn’t stop for minutes. Then the minutes were over and things on the porch were very still. People were whispering inside. Then, suddenly, people outside on the porch were screaming and falling to the ground — something smashed through a window upstairs and embedded the floor next to Oliver’s foot. It was an arrow. Oliver was yanked back. He couldn’t see much. People outside on the porch were rushing back in for cover and he knew he had to get ready for the second phase, so he went upstairs, with Leviathan’s help, to the windows, where they both, along with several others, pulled up the windows and set up their rifle stations.

“Levi,” Oliver said breathlessly, “your shoulder. It’s bleeding.”

Leviathan shook his head. “Arrow barely scratched me. I’m fine. You got that?”

“Yeah.” Oliver nodded, keeping his rifle steady with his hand and prosthetic. They kept their heads down. Downstairs, the prisoners being locked in the office by Dianne. She scanned the balcony for Leviathan, then nodded when she saw him. He nodded back.

“LOOKOUTS, FALL BACK!” Maggie shouted from outside. “FRONT LINES, KEEP THEM COVERED!” She came back inside and took her place upstairs with the others, setting up her rifle at the window.

“Is Rick back yet?” Oliver asked her.

“I hope so,” she said into her rifle, watching outside. Oliver looked too. Everything was very quiet again. The Saviors whistled, then, slowly, came out of hiding and wandered towards the house. Oliver scanned every face for Negan, but didn’t find him.

“Where is he?”

“Shh...”

“I can’t see him.”

“Almost...”

Oliver waited, and then, finally, Maggie gave the signal, and the floodlights outside came on, blinding Simon and the Saviors, and Hilltop unloaded on them. Oliver counted two men at the mercy of his trigger finger, and the ones who weren’t taken down by the others, scattered like ants, disappearing through the mazes of trailers. Oliver couldn’t see much except the few panicked Saviors he could take shots at, but heard Rick’s ground group ambush them around back, and finally, as the gunshots waded, a few Saviors were running.

“There!” Oliver gasped. “By the gates!” He picked off one, but others got out and he heard their engines revving. “No!” Oliver growled.

“They’re leaving,” Leviathan said. Oliver cursed, shooting desperately but hitting nothing except dirt and walls and the side of the bus. Leviathan grabbed his arm. “Stop, man.”

Oliver shoved him off. “No!”

“It’s done!” Leviathan yelled.

“It’s not!” Oliver shouted. “It’s not done. Not until they’re dead. Not until he is!”

Leviathan stared at him, out of breath and sweating. “He wasn’t there, man,” he said. Oliver caught his breath, furious. He felt tears and swatted them away. Leviathan seemed to be able to tell Oliver had understood him, and sat back to catch his own breath. “Come on, dude,” he said eventually, stepping back, “let’s go find the others.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think Oliver's like... real fukin angry. 
> 
> Also, wanted to talk about Juni's character a bit: I've grown up with someone who has Autism, but I'm still finding writing it real challenging, and I keep having to check myself. Plus, the whole deaf thing makes it real difficult too. But I think it's turned out okay.
> 
> Happy reading.


	145. Season 8 ~ Do Not Send Us Astray, Part 2: Henry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Moved into a new house for my third year of uni. Much nicer than the last shithole. Still can’t really thank you readers enough for giving me the confidence to decide to apply for uni two years ago, so yeah, thank you again. It’s not just brought me the education I want but has brought me the confidence to pursue the life I want. I won’t bore you with any gay (figuratively and literally) details but I think a lot of really unpleasant things would have happened to me if I hadn’t chosen this path, so again, thank you, heroes.

The next day, the remaining prisoners were put in the stockade again. Maggie turned off the generator to save gas and Barrington House became hot and stuffy, so people got to taking down the boards on the windows. Several people were being treated for their wounds, along with Tara, who’d been shot, and Tobin, who was stabbed.

Oliver and Enid were sitting outside the infirmary trailer, waiting for Leviathan to come out from his shoulder exam. “I got to know him a little,” Enid said at some point, “during training. You two were friends while you stayed at Kingdom, I guess.”

Oliver shrugged. “Kinda went cold after he found out about everything...”

“Everything?”

Oliver nodded. “Where I came from. Who I knew. How I got there. I never told any of them. And sometimes... I told them stuff that wasn’t true.”

Enid seemed to understand.

Finally, Leviathan came out with a wrapped-up bicep. His mom was there, too. She kissed his forehead and told him, “Go find some shade, cool down. It’s so hot out — you’re burning up.”

“I’m fine, Mom. Jesus.”

She smiled and left. Leviathan stood there awkwardly. Enid got up, said, “Uh, see you, guys...” in a way like she knew something neither of them did, and Oliver watched her go. Leviathan sat across from him, in the shade.

“I like your friend. Enid,” Leviathan said finally. “She’s cool.”

Oliver didn’t say anything, and neither did Leviathan for a while afterwards. Long enough that Rick went inside the infirmary and came out again several minutes later, holding a damp towel to the cut on his forehead — as he passed, he put his hand on Oliver’s shoulder, squeezed, then let go and kept walking.

Leviathan cleared his throat. “I heard, about... you know...” He stopped and started over, quieter: “If I’d known it was going to end like that, I wouldn’t have been... so...” He sighed. “I’m just... you know — sorry.”

“Look, man,” Oliver said, “I don’t care what you think, or thought. As long as you’re here, helping out like last night, you can do what you want.”

Leviathan seemed to appreciate this.

Oliver shook his head and spent a while scripting in his head what he wanted to say, and then he said it: “I’m sorry, too.”

“You are?”

“I am,” Oliver said. “I was an asshole to you. I lied to you — to all of you. I shouldn’t have done that.”

Leviathan nodded slowly.

“Listen,” Oliver added, “I went to the outpost. I didn’t see it up close, but, Carl, he...” He swallowed. “He put them down. All of them that were turned.”

Leviathan was looking at his feet. He nodded. “Thanks.”

Oliver turned away. Behind the house, he could hear some of the others digging graves. He could see Carol speaking with Henry — he looked mad, and Oliver heard him tell her, “I wouldn’t have died if I went out there,” and Carol tell him back, “You would have, Henry. Just trust me... you would have.” She did that thing she did sometimes. Oliver never understood how she did it. But she turned and looked directly at him across Hilltop, as if she knew he was there watching her.

Oliver got up, using his prosthetic to sheath his machete, then followed her and Henry towards the house. “Later, Levi,” he said as he left. “Look after yourself.”

“Yeah, man,” he said, “you, too.”

The heat inside the house made Oliver sweaty and uncomfortable. He followed Carol up to the second-floor hallway where she was waiting outside the bathroom for Henry.

“Hey,” Oliver said once he’d finally made it up there. He tapped the banister with his hook for a moment. “Heard you talking to Tobin this morning,” he admitted. “About if you’ll leave or not, after.”

Carol didn’t look surprised. She glanced at her feet, then at his, then she put her back to the banister and gave Oliver her best: _give me your worst_ shrug, and he did.

“This time,” he said, “you won’t leave.”

She didn’t say anything, but when she saw that he wasn’t angry or upset or anything, she scoffed — a little nervously. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Oliver said, and began to walk away. “You won’t because you can’t anymore. Just like me...”

* * *

 

As the night fell over Hilltop, a few people’s wounds had become infected, Tobin and Leviathan included, and they were staying in the infirmary trailer until the antibiotics could bring down their fevers. Everybody else slept inside Barrington House; staying together for safety — every room and office was full of sleeping bodies, as well as the second-floor landing and downstairs in the foyer, too. Oliver caught an early night in an upstairs bedroom with Enid and Maggie and the little baby Gracie. Rick and Michonne were staying next door with Judith. Michonne came in to say goodnight at one point, and the smell of her dreadlocks as she bent down to kiss Oliver’s cheek was the last thing he remembered before he woke up several hours later needing to use the bathroom.

Despite not bringing his glasses, he still noticed the couple tangled together in the blackened shadows at the end of the hallway, heard their wet kisses, and decided to go downstairs to leave them some privacy. Inside the bathroom while he went, he watched the shadows of tired footsteps pass under the door. Though, as he left to go back upstairs, he saw someone —Henry— cross the foyer and leave the house; he seemed to be wearing armour and carrying his stick, but Oliver wasn’t sure. It took him a while with his crutch and efforts not to disturb anybody, but he made it outside and across Hilltop, following Henry’s voice.

“Do you know which one killed my brother?”

“I—I don't know who your brother is,” Gregory was saying. “I—I don't know any of these people. I'm not one of them.”

Oliver couldn’t see well, but made out Henry standing in front of the stockade, an assault rifle in hand.

“That's a very _dangerous_ weapon you got there, kiddo,” Gregory went on. “Uh, I don't want you to get hurt. I don't want anyone to get hurt. Why don't you give it to me, and we can talk, huh? I'm sorry about your brother. Killing them isn't gonna bring him back.”

“No,” Henry said. “But it'll make me feel better. It already did once. And why would you be in here if you're not with them? I'm not dumb. One of you knows who killed Ben, and if I have to, I'm gonna start shooting people until someone tells me.”

“Henry,” Oliver called out.

He wheeled around and aimed his gun.

Oliver put up his arms. “Dude... It’s just me.”

“Stay back,” he warned.

Alden was standing by Gregory now, a hand out. “Hey, kid... I get it... My — My big brother died, too. Killing a bunch of guys who might’ve had something to do with it sounds... pretty damn good, in theory. But it's not gonna make you feel any better. Not for long. I know.”

“What's up, Al?” Jared yawned from the ground.

“Nothing,” Alden said quickly. “Go back to sleep.”

Oliver wanted to tackle Henry while he was distracted, but knew with his leg he wouldn’t get far, let alone not even having his prosthetic, or anything except the clothes on his back and the boot on his foot —— then there was screaming from inside the house. They all turned and looked.

Oliver cursed.

“Henry,” he said, “we have to go—”

“No!” he hissed. “I’m not going anywhere until I get what I came here for.”

The screaming went on inside Barrington House. Oliver limped forward and snatched at Henry’s arm, but he spun around and hit him hard across the face with his stick and Oliver collapsed.

“Oh-ho, shit,” Jared laughed. While Oliver writhed on the ground winded, Jared stood tall to listen to the house. “Music to my ears...”

“Was it you?” Henry ordered.

“I don't know what the hell you're talking about, kid,” he lied.

Henry grit his teeth. He stepped over to Oliver, kicked away his crutch, then went to the gate and unlocked it.

“Henry,” Oliver grunted, struggling to get up. “Dude, _don’t!_ ”

“I want the guy who killed my brother,” Henry yelled, inside the stockade with his gun swinging at them all. “Somebody better tell me _now!_ ” Oliver tried to get up, but Henry aimed his gun at him and told him to stay down.

“Look, I know you're angry,” Alden tried, both hands up like everybody else, “okay? I know. I was, too. But words are a lot easier t-to live with than actions, all right?”

Henry ignored him. “Be a man and step forward, so I don't have to kill your friends. I'm gonna count to ten and start shooting. One. Two. Three. Four. Five—” Suddenly, the screaming wasn’t only from the house, but inside the stockade. Oliver saw one of the prisoners, turned, and tearing into another Savior’s throat. Others started panicking, running. Henry started shooting randomly. Oliver saw Jared charge him—“Henry, watch out!”—and knock him down.

“Gate's open, boys!” Jared yelled. “Let's go! Oh, no, not you, cripple.” He cornered Oliver in his attempt to help Henry, and shoved him hard, sending him staggering towards the turned prisoner. Oliver caught her lunge against his elbows and span to the ground to avoid her. Though, she was stronger than him, fresher. She grabbed him and he tried to keep her away, screaming through his teeth while she growled and snapped at his face, and then there was a crack of wood against skull and she was limp, and Oliver shoved her off.

“Over here, you big stupid rotter! Get me! Get me!”

Oliver could hear Henry luring more away but was so winded it took him a long time to get up and leave the stockade. He grabbed his crutch outside, but by then Henry was being cornered by the front gate by them. A Hilltop woman who Oliver didn’t know the name of and another one. He made it there in time to whack the female walker across the back of the knees so that Henry could drive his staff through her nose. The second walker grabbed him, and Oliver yanked it back and hit it with his crutch. He saw its face and it was Leviathan and the horror came over him like a riptide and he hit him again and again until he was dead. Oliver knelt there sobbing and heaving for a minute until Henry tugged his shoulder and pointed to the house.

“They’re coming...”

And they were.

Standing, Oliver gulped away the rock in his throat and steadied himself.

“We have to go!” Henry cried.

“No.”

“We have to!”

“Pick up your stick.”

“No!”

“Henry...”

He was already staggering away, panicked. Oliver cursed. He knew he couldn’t take them on his own, and he knew he wasn’t fast enough to get past, and he knew that if he left Henry alone he would never see him again, so he thought of Sam and he thought of Mika and he thought of Lizzie and he thought of Carl, and then he turned on his heel and went after him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The couple tangled in the darkness were not a couple Oliver just saw a walker feast and didn’t notice without his glasses.
> 
> Happy reading.


	146. Season 8 ~ Still Gotta Mean Something: Complicated

Walkers never left their trail. Not all night and not all day following. No matter how far they went, once they’d lost one cluster another would spot them soon after — Oliver was in too much pain and Henry was too afraid to leave him. And the sun wasn’t showing through the clouds; they couldn’t tell north from south. And they looked for a place to rest but found nothing that was safe enough from the dead bodies following them, so all they could do was keep going, keeping just enough out of their reach. The woods seemed to go on forever. They saw nothing and nobody but the trees and the dirt and the clouds and the dead.

“Oliver... I’m really tired.”

“I know, man.”

“You’re really heavy.”

“I know... It’s hard.”

“I can still hear them.”

“I know, man... I know.”

“You’re slowing down.”

“I’m trying not to.”

“Should we stop for a minute?”

“No. Just... a little farther.”

“Are you sure? Your leg.”

“Just... a little... farther.”

“A little farther. Okay.”

So they went on just a little farther, and just a little farther on from that, until the woods were silent except their heavy breaths and pounding hearts, and Henry was too spent to keep pulling him along. Oliver knelt at the foot of a huge oak tree and held his head between his knees, breathless and waiting for the pain in his leg to wade. Henry disappeared. Oliver could hardly worry about him. He was too preoccupied trying to breathe — he’d left is inhaler behind at Hilltop.

_Shit..._

He brought his head up out of his elbows when Henry returned.

“I found something,” he said.

“Okay,” Oliver said, holding out his hand, “help me up.”

“Okay.”

“We have to hurry.”

“Okay.”

* * *

 

It was the road with a single drive-in cinema on the left and a small bridge up ahead, and by some miracle, the sky had cleared that way and Oliver could see the sun setting directly in between the gap of distant trees on either side of the bridge.

“West,” he said. “That’s west. And we need to go east.”

“How do you know?”

“This is Marshall road. That’s Redding. We used this road once to lead a herd away...” He cleared his throat and checked around them, saw nothing but the trees and the clouds and the fence around the cinema parking lot, then went to the entry kiosk. The door was left open and the building was very small, so they went in and blocked the door behind them and hid in the back room in the dark and waited until the shambling noises outside passed by. Across from them was a corpse lying slumped and dead across the floor, rotting into the wood.

“We’ll sleep here tonight,” Oliver said, limping to the front and sitting under the desk. His leg throbbed, and his toes were coated in dirt and bruises. “We’ll leave for Alexan — Hilltop, I mean, in the morning.”

Henry was looking through the shelves around the room, opening candy drawers and the popcorn desks and the drink stands and coming away mostly disappointed. Oliver left him to it. He was in too much pain to coax him to sit and rest. Then, finally, Henry sat down next to him, huddled under the desk, with two packets of candy in hand.

“Found them in a box.” His voice was scratchy, but proud. “Here... M&M’s.”

Oliver threw them across the room. They hit the popcorn stand with a rattle. Henry watched, then crawled over and retrieved them, like a dog. He sat beside Oliver again and crossed his legs, handing him the Hershey’s bar instead. Oliver ate it, then watched Henry eat the M&M’s — he didn’t seem to enjoy them much.

“If you tell me they’re stale, I’ll cut my own throat,” Oliver warned.

Henry didn’t say anything, just fiddled with the packet. After a long time he asked, “What do you think happened?”

“I don’t know.”

“All those walkers. Why were they—”

“I don’t know,” Oliver said again, harsher. “But I _would_ know, if you hadn’t run away, and we hadn’t spent all night and day being chased by them to the next fucking town over!”

Henry bit his mouth and sulked.

“I think they’re all dead,” he whispered finally, and a tear dripped onto his calf. He wiped his face and his leg and sniffed. “I thought it would make me feel better. I don’t feel better. I feel worse.”

Oliver wanted to yell at him. To tell him to get over it. To get used to it. To get used to all the people who died and all the people who will still die and always die _because you weren’t there to save them!_ But he didn’t. Henry sat there and ate him M &M’s and cried and Oliver watched him and then he cried, too. Henry began shivering soon after. Oliver, too. They pried some old curtains down from one of the windows and huddled together wrapped inside them. Henry asked how long it would take to get back to Hilltop tomorrow and Oliver said, “Not as long as it took getting here.”

“Okay,” Henry said, watching him.

“Why are you staring?” Oliver asked.

“You’re wheezing, in your chest.”

“I know.”

“Are you going to die?”

“One day.”

“I know that.”

“Okay.”

“If they’re out looking for us, and they find us, you won’t have to walk far.”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Do you think Carol will come?”

“Maybe. I... don’t know.” Oliver was quiet for a second. He coughed, and then he said, “Listen, Henry, you gotta know something about her. She had a kid, before.”

“Okay.”

“A daughter.”

“Okay.”

“She lost her... and I think she lost a part of herself, too. Do you understand?”

Henry looked like he didn’t but he nodded anyway.

“I think you remind her of her,” Oliver said. “I think... I think I remind her of her, too. And I think that’s hard for her. She left me once because she didn’t want to lose me like that, too. And now that we’re both out here, it’s probably going to be hard for her to come looking for us.”

“Why would that make it harder?”

Oliver shook his head. “People are complicated, man. They do stuff that doesn’t make sense to anybody but them. I’ve done it. Sometimes when I’m sad, I lie, or I don’t talk for a while, or I do bad things to myself or I cause bad things to happen. You did it, too. Last night. It made sense back then, to you, but not anymore.”

Henry dipped his head and nodded. Oliver inhaled hard, and bent forward to open his chest. It didn’t work and breathing gave him that feeling like it was becoming a chore, like it did whenever he struggled like this, like it was a fight that took more energy than it gave back and he might rather just sleep and let himself drift off away from it — he coughed and held his head and tried to think of other things.

“Are you going to suffocate?” Henry asked.

“N — _No..._ idiota. Just shut up for a while, would you?”

Henry did, and they were silent for the rest of the evening.

* * *

 

Henry stopped shivering finally and slept through most of the night. Although Oliver’s asthma didn’t improve, the rest helped his pain and the quiet, wild noises outside numbed out all the noise inside his head. At some point, after deciding to sit at the desk chair for a while to keep lookout while Henry curled up at his feet, he stared up through the window at the only star he could see: the North Star. He looked at the road ahead, at the darkness looming around them, and he became aware of how much scarier the world was without his glasses, or a gun, or at the very least a knife.

Oliver saw a light not long later, glinting along the road behind the trees. A vehicle, coming their way. His chest froze. He shook Henry awake and told him they had to move, that someone was coming.

“What if it’s someone from Hilltop?”

“What if it’s not?”

“So what?”

“They could be bad people.”

“Saviors?”

“Or worse?”

“There are worse people than the Saviors?”

“Sometimes. Yes. We have to go.”

They barely made it into the treeline before the truck drove by. Oliver was sure they’d been spotted because it slowed as it passed and they pinned their backs against tree trunks, the headlights’ shadows casting huge, sprinting monsters ahead of them, but then it was gone and the forest was black and they had to head for Hilltop. They felt their way through the trees. If they heard walkers, they went another way or hid until they passed. There was a narrow escape when a lurker stumbled out of nowhere and grabbed Henry’s arm, tearing off his shoulder armour; Oliver pushed the walker back with his crutch, snatched Henry’s collar, and they hurried on.

Henry could run a lot faster that Oliver could, but only strayed farther than he could see him once. Oliver stopped still to listen for him, and heard nothing but the walkers stumbling off the wrong way in the distance behind him. Henry was lost if Oliver misplaced him. So Oliver kept very still, hoping Henry would find him simply by retracing his steps. Finally, he saw him, not far away but rushing back from somewhere, and waving Oliver his way.

“I found something.”

Oliver trudged on after him. There was a stream, if they followed it left they would wind up back at the drive-in, but if they went right they would end up at Alexandria. They had to go through. Henry climbed down the ditch, careful as he manoeuvred himself past a mapping of tree roots reaching out from the bank into the stream. He cupped his hand into the water and — “No,” Oliver hissed, breathless. “You’ll turn by morning.”

Henry dropped his hand and wiped his jeans. “We could boil some?”

Oliver shook his head. “The fire... it’ll attract them.” He was too out of breath to talk. Breathing was more exhausting than walking at this point. He needed to sit, or collapse — just breath for a while. Henry let him. While Oliver laid in the dirt at the top of the bank, staring up at the stars, he could hear Henry pacing nearby. It wasn’t a good place to rest. It was a death wish.

_It is a death wish._

“Hey,” Oliver wheezed, turning his head. “Hey, listen to me, man.”

Henry knelt next to him, knees muddy and teeth chattering.

“I can’t make it all the way back from here like this,” Oliver explained. “I need... I need you to go by yourself.”

“What? I... I’m not going without you.”

“I’ll be right behind you,” Oliver said to him. “As soon as I catch my breath.”

“What if you aren’t?”

Oliver looked at him, then away.

Henry looked around. “I don’t know the way without you.”

Oliver shook his head. He pointed at the sky. “See the North Star?”

Henry nodded.

“All you gotta do is keep it to your left shoulder, okay?” Oliver said. “That’s all you gotta do, man, and you’ll be home.”

Henry was starting to panic and cry. Oliver wanted to say something to comfort him, and maybe he would have, but just then, there was a rustle through the trees. A twig snapping. Then another. Oliver found enough energy to grab Henry and pull him down into the stream, but his broken leg gave out and he collapsed into the water. Henry was quick enough to pull him by the shoulders under the mess of tree roots. They hid. Oliver’s leg throbbed and his throat was so tight he couldn’t even cry out. The cold murky water lapped at their chests and they kept their chins up to avoid getting any in their faces. Listening. Trembling. Groans came closer. Right on top of them — dead bodies stumbling down the bank and crashing into the water. One. Two of them, stumbling on through and climbing out the other side.

Finally, they thought it was safe, and were going to climb out, but another walker stumbled over the bank and they leaped back in horror. It lunged for Henry and Oliver shoved it away with his crutch, yanking Henry back. The other two walkers were coming back, he could hear them. They pushed back into the alcove of roots, their long, thickness acting like unsteady bars to a cell. Rotten fingers thrashed for their chests and faces. One had Henry by the shoulder. Another had Oliver by the hair. The third was being kept back by his crutch. He saw two bright headlights again, pulling up not far away and a shadowed, blurry silhouette running towards them.

“Help!” he yelled, no option left.

“Help us!” Henry screamed, too. “Help us!”

There was torchlight.

“Please!”

“Help us!”

The figure stumbled down the bank, crashed through the water, and took out all three walkers. There was crying and hands grabbing and then Oliver fell into Carol’s arms. She held him and Henry close and tight and breathless.

“I’m sorry,” Henry cried. “ _I’m sorry!_ ”

“It’s okay,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She let go of them and Oliver sat back in the water, exhausted, making inhaler motions with his fingers, and by some divine luck she had brought one. He took it. She was crying hard and grabbing him and Henry close. “I was wrong,” she said. “You can survive. I was _wrong._ ”

* * *

 

Back at Hilltop, Carol helped Oliver out of the truck. Henry ran on ahead and jumped into Ezekiel’s arms. Michonne came out of Barrington House. She ran over and held Oliver very quietly, then let go. She looked at Carol, confused.

“Morgan left me, earlier in the day,” Carol explained.

Michonne frowned, then nodded. She touched Oliver’s elbow and said, “I’ll take him to the infirmary. You should check on Henry.”

Carol nodded and they went separate ways. At the infirmary trailer, there was dry blood on the step and inside on the floor and walls. What happened last night had already explained on the drive back; that people got sick from the Saviors weapons. That they turned and turned more. Almost half were dead.

“Tara lived,” Michonne said once she’d finished cleaning his foot, now half way through re-dressing his cast.

“How?”

“She said Dwight did it, shot her. To save her.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Why wouldn’t he?”

“Okay.”

“Rick’s gone to look for the escaped prisoners,” Michonne explained, putting things back in drawers since Oliver’s leg was done now. “Morgan left with Carol to look for you guys — I don’t know where he is now... but I don’t think he’ll be back.”

“Okay.”

Michonne stepped over. She stroked some hair out of his eyes and kissed his forehead and then they went outside together and joined the others outside the house. They’d lit a campfire, and Jerry and Henry were sharing apples by it. Carol and Ezekiel were holding hands and talking. Dianne was returning from the graveyard, her eyes red and wet. She sat with Alden. The stockade was empty. Oliver sat by the fire and watched it, rubbing his ankle until the pain passed.

Carol came over a little later and handed him his glasses. It was good to see things clearly again. She looked at something. Oliver turned too and watched the gate open, and Rick and Morgan walked up the driveway. They were both drenched in blood.

Henry met them. Morgan touched his cheek and said, “I killed the man who killed your brother. I did. I killed him.”

Henry took his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” Morgan said. “No. Don’t ever be sorry.”

Rick went into the house. He didn’t look at anyone, except the small, heavy glance he cast at Oliver when he noticed him. It was enough.

* * *

 

Later, when things were quiet, Morgan asked Oliver to give his armour to Henry.

“Can’t you give it to him?”

“No, Oliver. I won’t be here to.”

“Okay...”

“Tell him I’ll be okay.”

“...Okay.”

“Go to bed.”

“Okay,” Oliver said, not sure he’d see Morgan again.

He tried to sleep — in one of the bedrooms with Gracie asleep in a cot across from him and Maggie and Enid sleeping in the four-poster. But he couldn’t sleep. His leg hurt too much. He sat up in his sleeping bag and pressed a thumb to his ankle, then Enid turned over to look at him. In the dark, she looked like an actress in an old, black-and-white film.

“Sleep,” Oliver whispered, like it might work.

“You sleep,” she said, because it didn’t. Oliver figured as much; before, he could hear her blinking against her pillow for hours. “Aaron hasn’t come back from Oceanside yet,” she whispered, “it was days ago now. It was what I tried to radio you for.”

Oliver looked at her. “I’m sorry... Carl — It had only just happened. I... couldn’t...”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I understand.”

She watched him.

“Did you read your letter yet?”

He shook his head, casting a glance at his things, which, after being brought up here, had become a little mixed up with Aaron’s. Still, it didn’t take him long to find Carl’s hat buried under it all, his letter still tucked inside.

“Do you want to?” Enid asked.

Oliver sniffed and nodded and Enid climbed out of bed and shuffled down next to him, facing away.

“I won’t read it,” she said. “I just... don’t want you to be alone.”

“Thank you.”

Oliver read it to himself. He didn’t remember falling asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You’ll read the letter next. Just buying more time so I get it right. Also, I just got done reading The Road and you can probably tell I liked it from the style this chapter was written in. I’m still too dazed over how good it was to tell if the style mimicking is too obvious, so I’m sorry if it was distracting. I hope I still kept true to Oliver’s character and the vibe of the show etc. (tbh I wouldn’t even think so hard about it if I hadn’t been vigorously trained to think about these things for the past few years, but hey, I’m still learning.)
> 
> Happy reading.


	147. Season 8 ~ Carl's Letter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> another update in the same 24 hours whoop tbh I just want season 8 to be over lol

_For after._

_Oliver, I have this hunch that when it comes time to say goodbye, you’re not going to want to talk much. And I think you might start to feel bad about that, so to let you know it’s okay, and that you shouldn’t feel bad about it, I’m going to write it all out now — everything we would have talked about, as if you’re sitting here in front of me. Or... I guess as if I'm sitting in front of you. I hope it helps._

_Back at the prison, before I really knew you, I used to watch you in the library. Patrick mentioned that you went every morning. And you did. You would read and I would see you through the shelves. Maybe that's weird of me. Maybe I should have just been brave enough to talk to you... I’m glad I finally was brave enough, after a while. I’m glad that you were my friend. You know that day we listened to music together for the first time? And you put on that song about giving everything up just to do it again. Well I would do that for you — I would give up everything just to know you all over again. And I wouldn’t change any of it. Not the farming or storytime or the hospital or even the string beans. Do you remember that night in the pig pen, when you held my hand... or I held yours — I can’t remember. I guess I thought it didn’t count. You’d said before, something about it all not counting. I don’t know. I was an idiot... We both were. But I also remember the first time something did count. That morning when the world felt like it was on pause and you told me I was everything to you and I kissed you and I thought I was going to blow up. I love thinking about that._

_What happened to me wasn’t on the Saviors. It wasn’t on Negan. Or Siddiq. And most of all... it wasn’t on you, man. It just happened. But I don’t want you to think it was for nothing either. It wasn’t for nothing. My dad’s going to tell you what it was for, soon... I really hope he does that. And, Oliver... be kind to yourself, after. You’re going to blame yourself. You’re going to feel sad — I hate that you’re going to feel so sad. But remember everything else we’ve done together. How safe we felt holding each other’s hand because we meant that much to each other and you’d sit by my side and tell me that I was your best friend and I believed you because I could see it all right there in your face._

_I don’t know what the next few days will be like for you. Maybe the Saviors win. Maybe we do. But I know you’re going to live. You always do. Luckiest guy I know, remember? Just know that whatever happens, make it something you’re proud of. After this is all over, know that everything you’ve done, and everything that happened, was for the people you love._

_I like to think I’ll see you again, one day. Until then, I love you, Oliver._

_Carl._

_P.S. You asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I've thought about it. And I want you to tell my dad about the owl sculpture._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ‘When Kind Lear dies in act five, do you know what Shakespeare has written? He has written, ‘He dies.’ No more. No fanfare, no metaphor, no brilliant final words. The culmination of the most influential piece of dramatic literature is, ‘He dies.’ Now I am not asking you to be happy at my leaving but all I ask you to do is to turn the page and let the story begin.’  
> — Mr. Magorium
> 
> Quote brought to my attention by Mr. Totally Drama


	148. Season 8 ~ Worth: No More Talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Screw it here is another one.

After sleeping late into the next morning, Oliver was at the stables for most of the afternoon. His leg prevented him from doing much chore-wise, but he still got a little done — Maggie even caught him attempting to climb on Roan’s back at one point, and told him not to, even though, as she left, she dropped an apple-box into the pen. Oliver waited until she was gone and used the apple-box to boost himself up. It hurt, but it was worth it to sit on Roan’s back for a few smug laps around Barrington House; in which Maggie shook her head and grinned up at him. He kept Carl’s letter close and read it again and again. Sometimes it would make him very sad, and other times it made him feel very peaceful, but most of the time he just felt something mixed between the two.

At some point in the day, Gregory returned from the Sanctuary with a letter from Dwight, looking very worn-out. Maggie dragged him back into the stockade. And at another point in the day, Oliver noticed Carol watching him from the fence. He wasn’t sure how long she’d been standing there. He’d been sitting in the grass for hours, watching Roan and four other mares graze together.

“Hey,” he said, getting up.

“Hey.” Carol squinted at him. “Daryl and Rosita aren’t around. We think they’ve gone to the Sanctuary.”

Oliver crutched over to her. She took his arm while he climbed over the fence, but he stood on his own. “Are we going after them?”

She shook her head.

Oliver frowned. “Did you... come here just to tell me about Daryl and Rosita?”

“No,” she admitted. “You just... looked peaceful in there—”

 “Oh. I was just...”

“—I didn’t want to drag you away—”

“No, I mean...”

“—or disturb you.”

“It’s okay,” Oliver said. “You didn’t.”

She nodded and sighed.

Oliver wasn’t sure what to say, so he waited for Carol to start first.

“Oh,” she said. “Yeah. Michonne’s looking for you.”

* * *

 

A little while later, Oliver was sitting quietly in the eagle truck’s passenger seat, reading Negan’s letter from Carl, while Michonne drove him out to deliver it. The signal on the walkie-talkie wasn’t very strong, so they had to drive to a deserted town close enough to the Sanctuary but not close enough for them to know they were there. Over the static, they could hear Saviors occasionally chatting about their jobs or other Saviours; mostly the escaped ones.

Finally, Michonne drove them up through a parking lot building, to the roof, and they sat in the car for a while. The sun was warm and bright, and some birds were bickering over a dead mouse on a roof over from them.

Michonne broke the quiet.

“Before we left the sewers, Carl told me...” She inhaled, then started over. “He told me he didn’t want me to be sad, after, that he didn’t want me to be angry. He said I had to be strong for you and Rick and Judith, and for myself.”

She wiped her face.

“I brought you out here with me because I think this is a good idea. Whether it works or not, this is what Carl wanted. And I think you’ll find some strength in that. You can still say no, if you don’t want to do it...”

“I want to,” Oliver said. He looked at her. “I want to.”

She nodded. Her eyes were wet.

Together, they got out. Oliver went to the railing at the edge of the roof and sat on the floor, while Michonne kept watch nearby. She smiled at him.

Oliver took a deep breath.

“Negan,” he said into the receiver.

There was nothing.

He tried again: “Negan, it’s Oliver.”

Again, just static.

“I’ll do this all day, guys... Put him on.”

And they did.

 _“Oliver!”_ Negan cheered through the radio-waves. _“Damn, what an unpleasant surprise. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the last time I saw you, you cracked me over the head with a guitar.”_

“It was a ukulele.”

There was a space of quiet. Oliver pictured Negan’s mouth twisting into a grimace but tried not to get too cocky.

 _“Why don’t you put Rick on the phone,”_ Negan said. _“Let the big boys talk.”_

Oliver thought that was a bold thing to say for a man who didn’t show up to his own battle just a day ago, but chose not to say so. Instead, he said, “I’m not here to do that. I’m here for Carl.”

 _“Hmm. Rick told me what happened,”_ Negan said. _“I was sorry to hear it.”_

Oliver inhaled. “Yeah. Well... Carl wrote us all letters, before... He wrote one for you. I’m just here to deliver it for him.”

_“Hmm. Go ahead, kid. Just know, I won’t promise not to kill the messenger.”_

“Whatever, man,” Oliver said, not sure if he was calling Negan’s bluff or simply dismissing the risk in its entirety. Regardless, he unfolded the letter and read: “ _‘Negan. This is Carl. I was helping someone. I got bit. We didn’t even have to be doing what we were doing... I was just helping someone, and now I’m gone. You might be gone. Maybe my dad made your people give you up and he killed you — but I don’t think so. I think you’re still around and you’re working on a way out. Maybe you got out. Maybe you think we’re a lost cause and you just want to kill all of us._

_I think you have to be who you are. I just wonder if this is what you wanted. I wanted to ask you... I wish I could have. _

_Maybe you’ll beat us. And if you do, there’ll just be someone else to fight. The way out is working together. It’s forgiveness. It’s believing that it doesn’t have to be a fight anymore. Because it doesn’t. I hope my dad offers you peace. I hope you take it. I hope everything can change. It did for me. Start over. You still can._

_Carl.’_ ”

Oliver folded the letter and waited for a reply.

 _“All this,”_ Negan told him, his voice like venom, like he wasn’t talking to Oliver at all but Carl himself. _“There is no getting out of it now. I wouldn’t accept your surrender if you came to me on your knees. Because winning isn’t about beating you. Winning is about killing every. Last. One of you. That. Is starting over... I never wanted this. Rick made this happen. You tell him that... No more talk.”_

The line cut out.

Oliver tore up the letter and let it blow across the roof, off through the breeze and down into the streets. Michonne helped him back to the truck. They didn’t speak for the journey back to Hilltop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for so many updates. Just really want this season out. Next one up in a little bit. Hope you enjoyed.
> 
> Happy reading.


	149. Season 8 ~ Wrath: The Way Carl Wanted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you read any part of this junk, read the end (anything beyond the sun symbols), I beg.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter today! Last one of season 8!

"Wimp.”

Rick turned as he exited Gracie’s room, frowning. “What did you say to me?”

“I was just... I meant, well, you’ve been sleeping all day long after last night. I was out there, too, with a broken leg, _and Henry_... err, it was a bad joke... I know you went through hell... forget it.” Oliver rubbed the back of his head with his hook. “Sorry.”

“No need for that.” Rick huffed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Just heard you wrong, is all. It’s okay.”

“Did Michonne already tell you,” Oliver asked, “about what Negan said?”

Rick nodded. “It’s why today’s happening.”

Oliver sighed, and Rick held him, and then he walked away. Carol was leaving the house and Oliver joined her, crutching alongside. Henry caught them as they left the porch.

“We’re going to beat them today,” he said.

“We are,” Carol said.

“And when we do, will you come back to the Kingdom?” Henry asked. “I won’t run away again.”

She looked at him and then she looked at Oliver. “Maybe...”

* * *

 

Rick, Maggie and Ezekiel had all their soldiers on the front lines, which was somewhere east in a big field on a hill marked X on Dwight’s map. Those who stayed at Hilltop spent whatever time they had left getting ready to evacuate before the Saviors came for them. Once Oliver was done packing his, Rick, Judith and Michonne’s things, he went looking for Enid and Judith, and found them outside, looking at the horses.

“Figured we have enough time,” she said.

Oliver stood next to her and put his arm around her shoulders, hook trailing in her hair, and they watched Roan step over to the fence to greet them. He put his ears back moodily and snapped his teeth, then got over himself and let Oliver rub under his long, ashy chin. Enid and Judith had already stepped back.

“Hang tight, dude,” Oliver told the horse. “I’ll see you again.”

He followed Enid and Judith inside the house, where they stayed for a little while. Gregory was allowed in, but he ended up saying something to Tara and Bertie about their attitude towards him, so they locked him in the office.

“SAVIORS!”

Everybody got whatever they needed and moved quickly to the escape hatch, making it out and into the trees in time. Gracie didn’t stop crying. Bertie had under Oliver’s arm, helping him keep up.

“Keep going,” Tara said. “To the rendezvous point. The others should already be there.”

“Hold up!” Alden said.

“What’s going on?” Enid asked, doing her best to coo to Gracie.

“I’m gonna try and slow them down. Look, they can hear her from New Jersey. Go,” Tara said. “Go!” They did. Oliver heard the explosions but he and the others couldn’t go back to help. Then, in a few more minutes, Tara and a few who stayed to help returned, bringing with them Aaron and almost all of Oceanside, too:—“Arron, are you okay?” “Yeah. Yeah. We’re fine. Come on. Keep going.” After that, things slowed down. The others on the front line weren’t at the rendezvous point until much later than they’d said, but eventually, finally... they came through, too.

Oliver didn’t quite take it in. He heard what people were saying. How Dwight was found out; fed the wrong information right before he sent it off, and that the false information allowed the Saviors to ambushed everybody. How Eugene sabotaged their guns and every Savior who shot was busted up with shrapnel. How it saved everyone and that was how they won. People kept asking what they were going to do now but nobody seemed to know the answer right away. Then Rick walked up to Oliver, his hand bloody and his face very old and tired. He looked Oliver in the eye and said, “It’s over.”

“It is?” Oliver asked.

Rick nodded, tears streaking. He pulled Oliver into him and cried and Oliver stared into the faux on his coat collar.

“Are we going home now, sir?”

“Yes, son... we’re goin’ home.”

“Okay.”

And they went home.

❂ **:** ❂ **:** ❂ **:** ❂

After fighting for so long and losing so much, it was almost anticlimactic, reaching their goal, except the suddenness of it was overwhelming. As time passed, Oliver found himself alone in the graveyard a lot. Wildflowers would sprout around occasionally and he would collect them and put them under Carl’s cross, and Mikey’s, and Ron’s, and Sam’s, and so on. He would sit in the dirt, then lay in it and sometimes he would fall asleep in it until someone came and got him, or more often, he simply woke up and went home by himself. One night Scab found him. He hadn’t seen her or her kittens since the explosions. She was alone, too. Oliver scooped her up, very carefully, and held her, and she let him, and he cried. It was strange for him to know that a moody cat was in just as much pain as he was.

Days rolled over themselves. Weeks. Months. Years. Oliver felt stuck in time for most of it, like he was being left behind. But sometimes he felt very present, like when he was training the horses, or taking care of Judith, or visiting the Brownstone apartment, where he found himself almost more than he found himself visiting the graveyard.

It was dark inside, especially down in the basement, where the cell was located, and it always smelled of sick, stale things. Oliver lit a candle on a small plate and leaned on the stair-rail as he descended, supporting his limp. He occupied the single, wooden chair in the room and set the candle down in front of himself on the floor, then sat there for a few minutes, watching the flame.

He thought of the first time he did this, years ago, glaring down the barrel of his gun instead of down at a flickering candle, how underwhelming it felt, how angry...

_“Oliver... Wait... Step back.”_

_“I have to, Rick... You’re wrong — Carl... He was wrong.”_

_“If we kill him, Oliver. We’d be no better than he is. We’d be worse. He let me live when he had the chance to kill me, to kill all of us — he let Carl... live. You have to trust me on this... Taking someone’s life, it’s what we did when we had to do it. But things are different now. The rules are changing.”_

_“He killed people, and you’re just going to let him get away with it? He can’t live with us — not the way Carl wanted.”_

_“No. He can’t. He won’t... He’ll be punished for what he did. But we’re gonna do it in a civilised way...”_

Ever since, nothing had really changed, but sitting there in front of the cell was familiar to Oliver, at least — it was safe, and it was easy.

“You gonna talk,” the cell’s occupant asked, “or just sit there thinking?”

Oliver shrugged.

“I’m not thinking of anything,” he told the candle.

“The fuck do you mean you’re ‘not thinking of anything’? Every second of your life is spent thinking. If your heart’s beating in your chest, throwing blood all up in your brain, you’re thinking _something_. Come on, a healthy young Italian like you... what’s on your mind?”

Oliver sighed, then looked up.

“The human nose can remember over fifty-thousand different scents,” he explained, “it’s nothing compared to dogs or horses, even rats, but it’s still disappointing to me that at least four of the scents I can recognise now... come out of _you_.”

“I... what? Four? Hold on, I can work this out. Piss and shit, right? That’s two. And sweat? Yeah I guess it’s pretty stuffy down here. But, hey, that’s only three.”

“More than just piss comes out of your dick, man.”

“Oh... Wow! You can smell _that?!_ ”

“Sometimes. When it’s stale. Yes.”

“I... well... _fuck,_ kid, I was not expecting that.”

“Well, you asked.”

“Ha! I did. I did. Anyway, how’d that house party go the other day? You mentioned you weren’t feeling keen on it, being around so many people and all.”

Oliver shrugged. “Fine. Guess. Drank too much. Got high. Some girl tried hooking up with me.”

“Tried?”

“I left.”

“Why? Pecker too sloshed?”

“I just didn’t want to have sex with her.”

“Hm. Who was she?”

“You don’t know her.”

“Well, that happens when you’re an imprisoned criminal.”

Oliver exhaled. “Name’s Anna.”

“Josh’s sister?”

Oliver looked up from the flame and nodded.

“Wait... this why you got into that fight the other day? ‘Cause you like Alex’s girl.”

Oliver shook his head. “I picked a fight with Coopers because he’s an abusive shit. He was hurting her. I think Anna just... took it the wrong way. I didn’t ask her for anything, she just...”

“Ah, poor girl probably just doesn’t get enough attention from her pa’s all. Don’t hold it against her.”

“I didn’t. I don’t care.”

“Hmm. Hey, I thought you were meant to be leaving sometime soon. That not happening anymore?”

Oliver sighed and shrugged.

“Oh?”

“Rick’s been busy,” he said. “I’d go without him, but... he made me promise — I think he wants to make sure I get there safe.”

“He does seem a little overprotective. But, you know, not that there’s anything wrong with that, given what happened to his boy...”

Oliver steeled his face.

“I suppose you must remind him a lot of Carl.”

“I suppose,” Oliver replied.

“Not that there’s anything wrong with that either. Rick probably finds it comforting, after this long. How long now, five years? Six?”

“Five,” Oliver said. He shook his head again when the air got too miserable. “Rick can be protective,” he added. “It doesn’t bother me, as long as he lets me do my own thing.”

“That’s good, that you can do your ‘own thing’? Scouting. Hunting. But it’s horses, right? You like those best. And they’re mighty useful nowadays. I hear them clip-clopping around outside all day every day.”

Oliver didn’t reply, even though he was expected to.

“You’re doing good, kid,” he was told. “You’ve got the whole world ahead of you.”

“Maybe.”

Oliver reached forward and retrieved the burning candle.

“I want you to know, Oliver... I really appreciate our little talks. It... really breaks up my days. Helps me... mark time.” Oliver was leaving for the staircase. “I think they’re good for you, too — having someone to talk to.”

“Sure,” Oliver said. “I’ll try to come back tomorrow.”

“Wait... before you go.”

Oliver glanced back and Negan grinned at him through the bars of his cell, his over-grown, earnest face lit up by the dim, jagged candle-light.

“After all this time,” he said, “all these talks, things we’ve shared. The things we've _cried_ over. Do you still wanna kill me?”

Oliver watched him.

“Yeah,” he said. “You know I do.”

Negan’s grin disappeared and shadows hid his eyes. He leaned close to the bars. “Don’t insult my intelligence,” he said, his voice low and gritty and normal again. “If I’d known your answer, I wouldn’t have bothered to ask.”

Oliver shrugged and turned away and began climbing the stairs.

“I thought we were _friends!_ ” Negan shouted after him, but Oliver had already shut the basement door behind himself and left the Brownstone apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don’t read ** text for possible season 9 spoilers, ay...
> 
> Yeah, biggest time jump in one chapter, eh? Heard from a *start of spoiler!!!* that the show would jump five or six years after the fifth or sixth episode *end of spoiler!!!* but I’ll change it if need be or add past scenes whatever. I’m just tired of season 8, ok? And I want Oliver to be an adult already — if I had to do it so should he, goddammit.
> 
> Took a few scenes from the comics: issues 121 (beginning scene) & 126 (Oliver/Carl trying to kill Negan) & 128 (end scene). Also despite Oliver’s actions I’m very team Rick on this with the whole ‘let Negan live or not’ dealio — death of the author and all that; Oliver’s a lot like me, but not a lot. What kind of fucking moron sleeps with socks on, amirite?
> 
> P.S. I’ve posted this super early, so if anything needs to drastically change I’ll let you know in future notes if I have to. Like, I doubt Negan will still be in the cell after five years but eh, we'll see. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ Plus, I’m a little bit torn on whether I want to follow the show or the comic-based route. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated?
> 
> See you in season 9, fuckors. Thanks for watching my words do the writey thing.
> 
> Edit: This puts the story into real time summer 2018 in this story wtf I just realised and it's wigging me out.
> 
> Another edit: To do with the book I'm writing. Any of you deaf or hard of hearing or know someone who is and can give me any advice? Please feel free to contact me as the main character in the story, Kes, is deaf. I'm doing a lot of research but anything helps. Thanks. 
> 
> Insta: gaellikestoswim   
> Tumblr: notmuchmoretosay  
> Twitter: notmuchmore2say
> 
> Happy reading.


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